John Dahlsen on one of his most successful project – the Guardian commission.
This piece will act as a celebration of roads and the city infrastructures. Historically, public art has been employed to soften the ‘blow’ of a city’s infrastructure and the predominance of tough and durable structures and the masculine elements of engineering.
The intention, as I see it, of this totemic structure is not to try and soften any image of roads and traffic, but to bring it to an artistic conclusion, where the artwork meets the challenges of its surroundings, reinterpreting it and not trying to digress from the very nature of roads, traffic and engineering with a contrasting message.
By the very nature of the materials used, this artwork will convey its own unique sense of beauty, as well as a dramatic totemic message engaging the elements of the roads and heralding the Story Bridge.
As well, the structures’ tree like quality will create an empathy with the landscaped environment.
My design has come about after an intensive appraisal of the site through several visits, taking photographs of the site, reading a comprehensive briefing of the history of the site and project discussions with the design team: Deicke Richard’s representatives and finally choosing the various materials which are available to me from the site to work into this sculpture.
My proposed art piece will contribute to a humanizing of the streets-cape and roads-cape, adding variety and vitality to the streets-cape and an important contemporary, environmental, educational and artistic message.
While attracting attention the sculpture will respect public safety, it will be accessible to the public for close viewing, and will not impede any normal pedestrian activity.
The key themes underpinning the installation will be environment, conservation and place. These themes, given an edge by my own style and interpretation, will give the artwork its unique identity.
Conceptually the installation will respond to the site’s traffic and its historic association with the Story Bridge: a link between two sides of a city.
In a community like Kangaroo point, where its bridge and road link to the other side of the city deeply inform its identity, as much as the geographical positioning in the elbow of the river.
Rather than ignore the presence of the major road system as a necessity to modern day traffic and convenience, the proposed Installation will resonate with a broad audience and celebrate this area as connecting the two shores of a major capital city.
My challenge as an artist is to take found objects, which might on first meeting have no apparent dialogue and to work with them until they speak and tell their story.
Rarely are roads celebrated and this art piece will offer a unique opportunity for me to assemble roadside infrastructure into an important contemporary artistic statement.”
Having developed this kind of in-depth rationale in my presentation to the community it really wasn’t that surprising that I received their full support.
Since the sculpture has been in position, it has received wide praise by both the community and also the various media. This particular work was featured in a virgin in-flight magazine for example: it was brought to my attention by many people who saw it.
So these are two of my favourite projects, I need to discuss this subject of favourite projects through being honest and my honesty in this regard is to include both these projects, simply because they were highly successful and immensely enjoyable throughout the whole process. I trust there will be more in the future like both of these talked about above.
