Jennifer Macey has issued an invite to anyone with a story about Port Kembla for a new podcast. Photo: Jennifer Macey.
If you have ever been a Port Kembla resident or worked in one of the many industries associated with the port, Jennifer Macey would love to talk with you.
The award-winning radio producer has invited the public to share their stories about Port Kembla for her latest project: a podcast exploring the suburb’s oral histories.
Best known for her short and documentary-length audio features produced for ABC and DW Radio, Jennifer is normally a “gun for hire” in the podcast space. This podcast will be the first she produces for herself, tying into her geography PhD at University of Wollongong’s School of Geography and Sustainable Communities.
Part of a bigger Australian Research Council-funded project led by Professor Chris Gibson and Dr Chantel Carr, which probes continuity and change in the Australian industrial landscape, the podcast explores life and work in Port Kembla and some of the changes that have happened since the 1980s.
Jennifer hopes a broad cross-section of the community participates, to share everything from longer stories to simple observations, recollections and “everyday nothings”.
“Our lives are made up of stories. You don’t have to be an expert on this subject to have a really interesting tale or memory or share. That’s the beautiful thing about the oral history tradition – which is so ancient – it’s how suburbs and places and histories are remembered; by passing them down and sharing them,” she says.
“They may seem unimportant because you know the story so intimately, but it might be amazingly important to people – if not now, then 10 or 20 years down track.”
Jennifer has recorded soundscapes for the podcast from spots all over Port Kembla, including on a boat with a harbour pilot. Photo: Jennifer Macey.
Podcast episodes will be based on key commodities coming in and out of the port, such as grain, coal, cement, steel, cars and bulk.
For use in these, Jennifer has captured soundscapes from all around the suburbs and their surroundings – on the streets, at the port, and inside the steelworks. She once went on a boat with a harbour pilot and recorded the sound of them bringing cargo ships in, and is even hoping to drop a hydrophone under the water at the port.
“Though I haven’t cleared that with the Port Authority yet,” she says. “I tend to favour sound-rich narrative podcasts over talking alone.”
These soundscapes will complement the conversations she has with locals.
“You might drive cars off the ships, or fisher folk who launch at the port, you might be someone who lived at Port Kembla for a time and remember a sight or sound or smell,” Jennifer says. “We want to know it all, we want a glimpse behind the curtain.”
Jennifer will be conducting interviews at The Bank Space in Port Kembla this week (until Sunday, 1 September), in the former vault turned recording studio, and will also be available for interviews all year from home or at the radio studios at the UOW.
“We’ll sit, we’ll chat, hopefully they’ll tell me an amazing yarn about their life and we’ll see where the conversation goes,” Jennifer says.
If you have words to share about working and living in Port Kembla, drop into the recording studio at The Bank Space until Sunday, 1 September, to say hello or book a time to speak to Jennifer here. To book an interview after, send an email to [email protected].
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