The Love Compilations
Inspired by Wendy Clarke’s Love Tapes, we invited the Castlemaine community to record a three-minute reflection on love, unscripted, unedited and entirely their own.
What does love mean to you?
That’s the question at the heart of the Love Compilations. In April and May 2026 we set up a recording room and invited members of the community in to answer it in their own way, through story, confession, humour, music or silence. Each recording is shown in full and unedited, and together they make an evolving portrait of our town and the beginning of an ongoing body of work.
The recording room
Each recording has its own backdrop, from the ocean to a starry night sky, and participants watched their recording back once they’d finished.
In numbers
Where it screened
Two or three recordings played before each session across the festival weekend, the full compilation ran at Castlemaine Art Museum and the Market Building, and the Wimble Wadio Wall projected it from dusk to dawn on Wimble Street, with the sound on 88.3 FM.
What people said
“They were so exquisite and touching. I found the people so thoughtful and meaningful.”
“The Love Compilations, I found them so moving, and they have all stayed with me.”
“Perfect to show a few of them before each film. That was inspired programming.”
Love letters
We teamed up with Dear Castlemaine to invite people to write a love letter back to the town. Here are a few, shared with permission and without names.
“Watching these Love Compilations is a unique experience that I feel privileged to witness. Love is the essence that connects us, with each other, the environment we live in, the world. It is the antidote to protect us from some of the terrible things the world has to endure.”
“I am not in love with someone but I think I am falling in love with my life here. Thanks to Castlemaine.”
“Love is found by listening and watching animals. They live in the present and encompass everything around them, within and without.”
“I love the Castlemaine Art Gallery. It’s a vital, vibrant, illuminating part of this town.”
Part of the Love Tapes
We also screened a selection from Wendy Clarke’s original Love Tapes, recorded with everyday people since 1977, and the Castlemaine recordings will be archived alongside that collection at the University of Wisconsin, the first Australian contribution to a project of more than 2,500 recordings.
Thank you
To every participant, to composer Scott Sanders at The House of Andersen, to Castlemaine Art Museum and the Market Building, to Frank Veldze’s Wimble Wadio Wall with The Northern Arts Hotel, to Dear Castlemaine, and to the Maldon & District Community Bank and Mount Alexander Shire Council for their support.
Help us record more of Castlemaine
We’d love to make the Love Compilations again. Donations, sponsorship and Club CDoc memberships all help bring projects like this back.