If you’re looking for a Maldon connection to the upcoming Castlemaine State Festival, read on. Simon Dow and Tim Dargaville have teamed up to create a space in which to contemplate, exploring themes of transition, decay and slowing down. The autumn timing and the location – in an old stables building – complement the music and imagery that form the work.

Dancer, photographer and gallery director (amongst other incredible things) Simon Dow and composer, educator (amongst other brilliant things) Tim Dargaville met, conversed and shared ideas in Maldon. They realised they had some thoughts in common.

“I had actually started a series of images, they’re all moods on ‘fading’. I called it The Faded; in our bodies and in nature, we just fade,” Simon told the TT [Tarrangower Times]. “That started the conversation.”

Tim said: “We bring out the philosophers in each other. We talked a lot about emptiness in the Buddhist sense, decay.”

The pair are calling Traces: “A vivid conversation asking what remains when everything else fades.” Attendees will step into the space, illuminated by streaks of sunlight through air vents and old windows, and experience three short films on a loop accompanied by piano compositions. (The pace and delicacy of the example on the Festival website hint to a calming, thoughtful atmosphere.)

“The music creates an environment,” Tim said. “The images float across. They are not synchronised.” Instead, Tim says he has been experimenting with trying to find a sonic language that melds with the imagery.

The images contain nature, movement, texture: continuing explorations that have been apparent in Simon’s previous collections, too. Some of the conversations are existential. “I’ve asked those questions since I was a child: what is it to be human, do we exist at all?”

Wander down the short lane behind Castlemaine Library to discover the character-filled building that will host Traces. It’s a daytime experience, so audiences will have the extra benefit of seeing what lies beyond the Barker Street arched windows and stone foundations.

“The festival has provided us this marvellously expressive place because they’re programming events in odd, curious, out-of-the-way spaces,” Tim explained. “Which is exactly what we wanted.”

There is no cost to visit Traces; it is wheelchair accessible and suitable for all ages and runs from 11am – 4pm, daily during the Festival. This is a space you can enter at any time and decide from there how long you would like to linger to muse about life and autumn. Traces is located at The Stables, Rear Cantwell Real Estate, 200 Barker Street Castlemaine. Find out more: www.castlemainefestival.com.au/event/traces/2026-03-21.

This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 20 March 2026.