RIGHT at the heart of the labyrinthine structure, in the heart of our city, a new Gothically haunting Ballarat-inspired soundscape will play.
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Ballarat composers Damien Charles and Kate Lucas will create a musical piece to complement upcoming art installation 1000 Doors - A Door Within A Door, which is set to open in Armstrong Street South on August 25.
The immersive art work, designed by Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney, has sound behind some doors and in most spaces but has been touring without any sound at its centre.
Lucas said how people will react and connect to the sound will depend on what they were feeling when they stand in the space.
This is what 1000 Doors aims to evoke as people move through the installation, nothing prescribed but objects, photos, sounds and doors that provoke personal feelings whether this be nostalgia or an eerie scary feeling.
Hopefully it'll stir something up in people who come to experience it too.
- Kate Lucas, Ballarat composer
"We're big fans of Christian and Keith's work and we can't wait for people to experience the exhibition right here in Ballarat. It's the perfect place for it," Lucas said.
"Without revealing too much, the piece incorporates modified found sounds, synthesised textures and audio nostalgia fragments that are meaningful to us and reflect what we know about Ballarat.
"Hopefully it'll stir something up in people who come to experience it too."
Take a sneak peek behind the doors below.
To bring 1000 Doors to Ballarat will be a homecoming of sorts, according to Wagstaff. Many of the old doors to feature in the exhibition have been sourced from Ballarat so have been opened in this city before, in some form.
The exhibition is a companion piece to Wagstaff and Courtney's House of Mirrors, which is now based in Hobart's Museum of New Art, better known as MoNA.
In a shift to a more labyrinthine feel, rather than House of Mirror's maze, 1000 Doors was sold out at the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Brisbane Festival, and the Adelaide Fringe Festival.
There will be corridors, vestibules, hallways and doors where skirting boards, cornices and objects are just as important in generating stories and feeling.
Wagstaff said the aim was to create portals to other spaces and time.
Photographs distributed throughout spaces are deliberately indistinguishable in what Wagstaff said allowed viewers to be moved by them in their own ways.
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Wagstaff said there was very much a Ballarat feel to the installation as a regional city with such a rich history - and particularly with so many Ballarat doors in the mix.
"We think the doors pick us, we didn't pick the doors - there are size requirements we have to consider - but when we pull them all out there are ones that seem to jump out," Wagstaff said. "As a show we travel around, for example in New Zealand, we also collect orphan objects from each town and region.
"We want people to realise there is rubble, things age and decay, you can't fake that and you don't want it to look like theatre.
"Some people do come out moved by it and we let the stories come from them. Each individual person brings something to it - sad memories and happy memories or smells.
"...It's like the old, abandoned house concept from when you're a kid. It's a reminder for people things do decay and it's nice to look at things with nostalgia."
It's a reminder for people things do decay and it's nice to look at things with nostalgia.
- Christian Wagstaff, artist
Federation University historian David Waldron has also been engaged to add witch marks inside the travelling piece. Such traditional markings were used on the goldfields to protect buildings from evil spirits and fire.
City of Ballarat councillor Belinda Coates said it would be exciting to see the Ballarat additions in the installations.
"As a Creative City we are committed to encouraging world class touring shows to visit, and we are also committed to ensuring our own creative sector can directly connect as well as have access to creative opportunities," Cr Coates said.
1000 Doors will open in the Armstrong Street South space next to Ballarat Town Hall where the ice-skating rink has been set.
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