Check out the Australia Council's feature on our Dust Poems project here!

Dust Poems, our first project for 2009, has been created in partnership with Sydney Olympic Park Authority and coincides with the Royal Easter Show. Exploring the words of truckies and their experiences of the road, the project commissions three truck-driving poets and three professional poets who work in non-trucking industries. Often ignored, repudiated and misunderstood, truckies in their constant travels see more sides to this country and its people than just about anyone else – and we want it into words.

This project draws out and showcases language that carries truckies’ unique perspectives on Australian life (and death), landscapes, foibles, practices, fauna, flora and humanity. At the same time, the project is a way of paying tribute to the men, women, families and animals who ply the highways and byways of this vast and awesome nation and help keep the country running.

Construction sites, carparks and hidden locations of Sydney Olympic Park will be transformed by installations that display the six poems in interactive ways. The public will be invited into these spaces by way of a route map that navigates a Truck Poem Search. The Search will contain toy trucks donated by the public, and poems logged at the Park by roaming visitors. You can help us construct the Search by donating toy trucks to deposit points at the Red Room and Sydney Olympic Park.

Dust Poems is supported by Sydney Olympic Park Authority, The Deloitte Foundation, Bigway Interiors and is currently being advertised by radio legend John Laws.

The Truck Deposit Box at Sydney Olympic Park is also an audio installation where you can listen to the poets read their poems and hear audio material linked to this project. [more…]