Coinciding with both the Blue Mountains Music Festival and the Katoomba Live and Local micro music festival, Platform Gallery’s next exhibition, Imaginary Albums, pairs writers with artists to create the albums that don’t exist, but should.
A heady nostalgia for the days of liner notes and vinyl led Blackheath writer Amanda Kaye to conceive of the project. Before long she had gathered a group of leading Mountains writers and artists who recounted stories of first albums and first concerts.
“These albums are missed opportunities; the uncanny cultural signifiers of our collective vinyl-addled fancies,” said Kaye. “We are creating a lounge room complete with record player in the gallery, so the audience can come and spin some LPs, and post their own ideas for imaginary albums up on our pin board, alongside the sketches, notes and pitches from our artists, which track the development of the albums in the exhibition from early concept through to the polished artwork.”
Sometimes using a real performer and sometimes inventing musicians from the ground up, each writer invents the tracks and the back-story, before passing the creative baton to the artist, who designs the cover art. The end result is 10 imaginary albums, ranging from a prog rock concert on an Icelandic volcano to Helen Garner: the musical.
Platform Gallery curator Kelly Heylen said: “This exhibition includes some of the best creative talent in the Blue Mountains, and is a natural fit with our region’s thriving live music scene.”
Imaginary Albums opens 5.30pm Friday, March 9, at Platform Gallery in Civic Place, Katoomba. It runs until April 9.
