“PEOPLE often got the feeling of being pushed and they would turn around and there was no one there.”
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“They heard a massive crash/bang but when they went in, nothing was there.”
“He woke up one night and all the lights of the house were turned on, and the next day he moved out.”
Many on the Border have a ghostly experience to tell and a contributor to next month’s Write Around The Murray wants to hear them all.
Artist Anna Tregloan will present The Ghost Project during the festival, September 14-17, an installation that reflects Albury-Wodonga imagery and stories.
The former holding cells behind Murray Arts Museum Albury, once used for prisoners facing court appearances, will provide an atmospheric setting for the experience.
Tregloan and her researcher, journalist Jackie Dent, have been visiting the Border to learn more about its supernatural sightings.
“They are everywhere but they’re an oral history so they’re this really kind of malleable, changing thing,” Tregloan said.
“People are worried about being judged, which is strange when so many people have got (stories).”
Dent said she went out for three hours in Albury and found 10 ghost stories.
“It’s something that’s really part of people’s experiences and perceptions,” she said.
She hoped retired lawyers or police officers could offer insights into the project’s location.
“Just some of the atmosphere around what the cells used to be like,” Dent said.
This will be about the 10th version of The Ghost Project, which Tregloan has also researched or presented in Seoul, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney. It explores the nature of ghosts, trying to reach back into this world but not able to move into the next.
“So what that psychological space might be like to be that, to be stuck, not being able to tell your tale, possibly for an eternity,” she said.
Also a designer and creative producer, Tregloan often collaborates with performing arts companies and festivals to create large scale works.
But The Ghost Project can be made more quickly for a particular location, like the former Albury holding cells in a fortnight.
“It is really close, but that’s part of the fun,” she said.
“We find it, make and give it to people to experience.”
Anyone with a Border ghost story can contact The Ghost Project on rsvp@theoptimism.org.au.
