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Most of us wouldn't bat an eyelid at a caravan parked at the local show.
But when a chalkboard emblazoned with "blood, sex and tears" appears, things start to look a lot more interesting.
A willowy woman in a dark grey dress invites you inside to record something about one of those three words and when your eyes adjust to the lack of light you see an old 1940s wooden desk and chair, a battered microphone and an aged cassette recorder with arrows showing which buttons to press.
"Even as the performer who brings people in, I have no idea what people have said," says Dan Goronszy, the co-founder and chief spruiker of The Grand Caravan (and the woman in grey).
She explains that once numerous people have had time to lay down their recordings on blood, sex or tears, her colleague, sound artist Sharyn Brand, cuts them into audio collages of six to eight minutes and plays them as a public event at the same location.
"When we were in Adelaide 80 per cent of people chose sex, which I thought was really interesting. We've never had that anywhere else before," says Ms Goronszy.
"But for them to come back and listen to it was a little risqué. They got a little giggly."
When I stumble upon the arts-project-cum-social-history-repository, it's parked at the Women of the World Festival in Melbourne, having also appeared in South Australia, Geelong, and Marion Bay in Tasmania.
"I think there's something really special in being given a little space on your own to just speak without judgment or without anyone watching you," says Ms Goronszy.
The caravan itself began life in the 1980s as accommodation for a family of six, but was reborn in 2015 after a refit, debuting at the Melbourne Fringe Festival with room for 15 spectators to squeeze into its tiny grandstand.
Though people often think they have nothing to say, according to Ms Goronszy the main problem is getting people to stop.
"We have women speaking about having miscarriages or having abortions," she says.
"People have spoken about their children dying and find this a safe space to have a moment, and come out and feel like they've had a connection."
When you enter the Grand Caravan you sit at the recording desk and Ms Goronszy asks which one of three red envelopes labelled blood, sex and tears you want to choose.
I choose blood. Ms Goronszy pulls out a card, shows me the cassette recorder and explains I only have 30 seconds to record my thoughts before the recording light goes out. Then she exits the van.
There's only one other instruction: don't use the words blood, sex and tears in your recording.
When I ask Ms Goronszy why, she explains that removing the "signifier" gives the final sound collage a sense of the universal.
"It creates opportunity for people to connect to anything that's happening in their own lives — it makes it ambiguous about what people are speaking about and it draws people together."
The Grand Caravan plays an unusual role. Through its recordings it's a storehouse of community values and personal storytelling wherever it opens its door, but it retains confidentiality in the public performance.
Back in Adelaide, where the subject of sex got top billing, Ms Goronszy tells me that on successive nights, a man and a woman separately decided to simulate self-love in the 30 seconds they had to record.
And did those moments find themselves in the final sound work?
"Oh, of course!" says Ms Goronszy, laughing.
"You've got to keep that stuff in, because that's where the conversation comes from!"
The Grand Caravan continues to tour in 2017 and its founders hope they can get the funding to take it north to the Northern Territory and Queensland.
"The personal is how we connect the world," says Ms Goronszy. "You get to offer people a way for them to have a voice where they may feel their voice is left out."
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, contemporary-art, community-and-society, melbourne-3000, vic, australia