LIGHT LETTERS

As part of NORTHSIDE, our wider community engagement program, LIGHT LETTERS featured stories, poems, and artworks by senior students from Nelson Park School, a special developmental school. This project was the result of a residency where students created two publications, with excerpts displayed across the area.

These messages were showcased on Variable Message Signs throughout the northern suburbs and LED billboards along the Bypass and Highway near Beckley Park in Corio. Many enjoyed using our map to guide them through the display locations and explore this celebration of community and creativity.

This inspiring display of art and storytelling lit up Geelong and left a lasting impression!

LIGHT LETTERS was supported by the Anthony Costa Foundation, Cassandra Gantner Foundation, Give Where You Live Foundation. Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative; the Department of Education Victoria through its Strategic Partnerships Program; and is presented as part of Geelong Design Week.

Back to Back Theatre would like to acknowledge the support of Total Outdoor Media (TOM), Corio Village, Rosewall Community Centre, Geelong Regional Library (Corio Branch) & Harrlex Property Group.

LIGHT LETTERS: Foreword

“Dogs eat grass. I’m hungry.” is a series of stories and poems produced by senior Nelson Park students in 2024, as part of a Back to Back Theatre Residency called LIGHT LETTERS, which has been running for the past eighteen months. This iteration of the project was co-created by the students, Marcia Ferguson, Glen Smith and former Nelson Park Student Nikita Veitch.

Unlike the previous works, “I eat sharks. Sharks eat people” and “Running giant in child’s shoes“, which resulted in small publications, the content for this work was created to be displayed on a series of display and advertising boards, to create a public installation for a wider audience, including traffic driving past, people walking their dogs and those going about their business at a shopping centre. A visual map has been carefully created, with student drawings, helping the public find their way to the various locations. The project was also included in the 2024 Geelong Design Week program.

The students were asked to respond to each site location through improvisation, games and drawings, by considering the history of various sites, why people connect to place, what keeps us coming back, and how a can hold meaning in our lives. The locations were carefully selected in the Northern suburbs of Geelong, to coincide with Back to Back Theatre’s NORTHSIDE project.

Nikki Watson
Community and Education Producer – Back to Back Theatre

DOWNLOAD THE MAP AND BOOKLET