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Carmel’s West End

This feature length radio program explores the way in which people both shape and are shaped by their community and their surrounds. Brisbane’s West End is undergoing rapid change, as urban development threatens to erase the rich history and stories of this area. Locals like Carmel are struggling to make sense of this change, and to hold onto the place they know and belong to.

It is Carmel’s connection to West End which becomes our aural and imaginative compass in this program, as we journey on foot through its streets and laneways, and encounter locals and stories of a place deeply etched into the wider history of Brisbane.

Carmel had a difficult childhood, which led to years of alcoholism and drug abuse, and she now lives with a learning disability. Her recovery is inextricably tied to her sense of belonging and place within the West End community, where she lives and works. Shadowing Carmel are the echoes and memories of a multitude of local folk from the present and the past, creating a soundscape of West End in all it’s chaos, candour and colour.

Program produced for ABC Radio National by: Hamish Sewell.
Technical producer: Steven Tilley.
Original music by: Linsey Pollak

This project is supported by Q150

This program was broadcast on Hindsight on Sunday 27 September 2009 and repeated on Thursday 1 October at 1:00pm.