Prepare to write your heart out at MoB with Trent Dalton
First it was a best-selling book. Then it was a play. Now you can fall in love with Trent Dalton’s Love Stories all over again in its newest iteration as an immersive writing experience at Museum of Brisbane this September. Share your secret crushes, platonic partnerships and love lost or take a look at the remarkable love lives of others in Write your heart out. Read on to learn all the romantic details …
For two months in 2021, Trent Dalton sat on a busy street corner in Brisbane City with his sky-blue 1960s Olivetti typewriter, and asked random strangers to tell him their love stories, an experience which became the unabashedly joyous and best-selling book Love Stories.
Now, in celebration of the world-premiere adaptation of Love Stories at Brisbane Festival, Brisbanites are once again invited to share their tales of first, enduring, or lost love as Trent returns as Artist-in-Residence to the Museum of Brisbane with an interactive love-letter experience.
Every day in September, Museum of Brisbane visitors can fill the Dome Gallery with tender tales by writing their own love letters. These missives can then be sealed up as a secret or shared within the communal display that will celebrate everything and everyone we love in the city.
Trent will also return to his original source of inspiration in a one-off event, mentoring a select group of emerging writers for an intensive workshop about the intimate art of the interview. Primed with notepads, typewriters and recorders, Trent and his group of writers will take over King George Square for a free pop-up public event on Friday September 6 from 12:00–2:00 pm.
Locals will have the opportunity to share their love stories with Trent and his troupe of writers. The results of these amorous interviews will become part of the Write your heart out display in the Museum following the event.
Museum of Brisbane Director Zoe Graham says the Museum was honoured to collaborate with one of Brisbane’s most cherished writers to celebrate the tender tales of the local community.
“We are thrilled to partner with Trent and our friends at Brisbane Festival to create this very special experience that taps into the very heartbeat of our city,” she said. “We anticipate an outpouring of love stories throughout September as the community divulges their precious tales of love at the Museum and experiences the world premiere production of Love Stories at QPAC.”
Write your heart out will be at Museum of Brisbane from August 30, 2023 to September 29, 2024. Head to the Museum of Brisbane website to learn more.
This article was written in partnership with our friends at Museum of Brisbane.
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