Published 16 January 201919 February 2019 · Theatre / Labour history Podcast: The Bridge Editorial team The Art & Industry Festival commissioned this podcast, The Bridge. It has been produced by Overland magazine and Witness Performance, in collaboration with the 2018 Art & Industry Festival, which was themed around bridges. The podcast On 15 October 1970, in Australia’s worst modern industrial accident, a 2000-ton span of the West Gate Bridge fell during construction. Thirty-five bridge workers died and a further eighteen were injured. This podcast documents important moments from the 2018 Art & Industry Festival that relate to the history and significance of the West Gate Bridge. It will take you to symposiums; intimate accounts from workers who survived the collapse; scenes from the recent production of The Bridge, a play written by the late Vicki Reynolds in 1990, which tells the stories of the bridge workers using verbatim techniques; and, finally, to a special performance of ‘Throw your arms around me’ by Mark Seymour, James Henry and local community singers (led by Jennifer Lund), largely sung in the Yuwaalaraay language. Co-hosted and produced by Ben Keene, from Witness Performance, and Jacinda Woodhead, from Overland. Mixed by, and all additional music by, Ben Keene. People we’d like to thank Many thanks to the West Gate Bridge Memorial Committee, the CFMEU, everyone who spoke at the ‘How to build bridges’ symposium and/or gave their time in interviews, James Henry, Bindi Cole Chocka, Mark Seymour, local community singers (led by Jennifer Lund), Donna Jackson, Elizabeth Humphrys, Enza Gandolfo, Tara Goldstein, the Art + Industry Festival, Witness Performance, Ben Keene, Alison Croggon and Rachael McGuirk. A special thanks to the bridge workers – Tom Watson, Danny Gardiner, Pat Preston, Paddy Hanaphy and Ian Domoney – who were so generous with their thoughts and experiences, and to the trade union movement as a whole. The Bridge Project: Image 1 – Horizontal (Bindi Cole Chocka) Related links about the Bridge Projects and the people involved The West Gate Bridge Memorial Bindi Cole Chocka James Henry Music Art & Industry Festival Hubcap Productions Overland interview with Bindi Cole Chock and Donna Jackson, and excerpt of the play The Bridge Supported by Ed note: transcript to come. Lead image: The West Gate Bridge (with text projections); credit: Gary Eastwood Editorial team More by Editorial team › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 16 October 202416 October 2024 · Labour history Unions, the Left, and the fight against unemployment — then and now Owen Bennett The absence of a visible campaign against mass unemployment has had a profound impact on Australian politics. Union and left-wing engagement with unemployment has become an increasingly top-down largely technocratic affair devoid of grassroots participation. As a result, unemployment policy is increasingly understood as something that happens to workers. 26 July 20238 August 2023 · Theatre Collapsing drama to grapple with difficult realities: Vidya Rajan’s Crocodiles Emilie Collyer It is essential for other writers, makers, and performers who don’t stem from the culturally dominant white, middle-class world that produces most ‘Australian culture’ to see and feel and experience these works, these different ways of making and ‘languaging’, so they may be emboldened to do the same. And, importantly, so that the ways in which we see and understand ourselves continues to be ever more nuanced, sophisticated and evolved.
