The artist Geoffrey Ricardo was awarded a commission to create eight sculptures on the Kororoit Creek Shared Trail for the benefit of pedestrians and cyclists. He contacted me in early 2017 to see if I might be interested in working with him:
I am working on a sculpture commission and I am looking for poetry to place around the base of each piece. Poems that would relate to the sculpture in some way, nothing literal or descriptive but a creative response to the piece. The text would be cast into concrete blocks.
I thought I’d ask you in case you can think of someone or something. I have money in my budget to pay. Perhaps even something of your own.
I had been following Geoff’s posts on Facebook. He had taken on an ambitious project and I was delighted to be involved. I made plans to visit him at a foundry in Sunshine. On first seeing the figures, even in the workshop space, I was taken by their size. I could imagine a child in awe of their enormity, their mysterious presence and the power they would have to conjure wild imaginings.
I chose Victorian writers as it gave them the opportunity, if they wished, to visit the foundry and the site of the trail. I numbered the sculptures in the above image from
1 – 8, left to right. I then assigned a figure to each of the writers involved, including myself. The process by which I chose the figure was to leave it to chance. The name of each writer, written on a piece of paper, was matched with the printed image of Geoffrey’s sculptures. Names and images were thrown on a flat surface and randomly put together.
These were the results:
- Nick Gadd
- Ania Walwicz
- II O
- Dom Symes
- Cate Kennedy
- Lisa Jacobson
- Phillip Hall
- Donata Carrazza
This project will be officially launched on Sunday 30 July, 2017, National Tree Day.
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