Gungahlin gets more public art

The site the dirt is being taken from is a Homemaker Site. The to site is the college (not high school), library, CIT, town square, aquatic centre and Manuka/Ainslie style enclosed oval.

Hingo, we recognised the concerns you raised about severely curtailed opportunities for commercial explansion a while back, and as a result of our lobbying, had some 30ha of land earmarked for more townhouses converted over to C2 Business Park zone. Basically everything from Kate Crace Drv to the existing houses at the north end of Flemington Road. Both sides.

Really? Of all the places to put a High School, they put it in prime real estate? Good luck with the future commercial expansion of Gungahlin. They could put a bloody school damn near anywhere.

H1NG0 said :

While we are on the topic of glorious Gungahlin, why the hell have diggers been pushing mounds of dirt around for weeks on end near the Goodyear Tyre Centre? Latest tourist attraction maybe? “Come and see the largest dirt mound in the ACT!!”

I think a (High?) School is being built there.

i wish mr stanhope would STOP wasting tax payers money on these pointless pieces of artwork – they aren’t even interesting. all crap to me…oh and the one in the new prison may have to be pulled down!! waste of money

Thanks Mr Al for bringing some informative content to a discussion about public art. Hurrah!

Don’t drift off course when parachuting near Gungahlin!

LOL yeah that probably wasn’t in the risk management plan…

“Accidental interactions” with tall spiky metal things? Painful! Don’t drift off course when parachuting near Gungahlin!

Ok, Gungahlin Al, if you like it I will give it a chance.

: )

How about, instead of doing this, you actually put in a Japanese garden? I’m sure for $72,000, its a feasable idea.

Had a good talk with Malcolm Utley the artist on site today and he explained some of his thinking in the design, which incidentally I am quite OK with, having now seen it up close. (“I dunno art, but I know what I loike”)

The rocks – like with Japanese landscaping – provide an element of earthiness, nature and permanence, in a sterile artificial environment. They are positioned to give a ‘tip of the iceberg’ impression (another Japanese technique). They represent the rocky outcrops that are characteristic around Gungahlin – with the closest being Red Hill (not THAT one) within Franklin just up the road, and there is a good resemblance. The metal spires represent tree trunks – they remind me of the burnt trunks remaining after a bushfire. There are 12 of each, which he chose as being symbolic of the human calendar.

A good aspect is that the heavy metal and granite stone will be virtually maintence costs free.

He explained that he’s an architect by trade but a painter and general artist, and that he has been working on this full time for the last year, and hasn’t painted anything in that time.

The total cost of the installation is $72,000, and when I can’t get a landscaper to build a decent deck outside my house for less than $8000, I can see that he isn’t making any money out of this commission. He’s even there doing all the installation work himself to try to save money. So go up and have a chat with him and make your own mind up.

The brief we gave our rep Sean on the selection committee was that we didn’t want something that is sterile and just looked at in passing, but instead something that your kids can climb on, that you can sit around on, and that basically becomes part of your movement or use of the town centre. And that it should aid “accidental interactions” between residents – to get people talking to each other, making friends, etc. I think this will do that.

In a funny twist of timing, Genevieve Jacobs from 666 rang me about had I seen the new piece? “Seen it? I’m standing on it.”
And note the cost was $20,000 less than the CMO told her it was.