Trove

Conceived as a Public Artwork within the City of Yarra, Trove flanks the perimeter of a residential development fronting Wellington Street between Victoria Street and Derby Street in the inner-city suburb of Collingwood in Melbourne Victoria.

A recurring element of my work is the use of form, texture and tactility to elicit a physical response and invite the viewer into a personal moment of enquiry. The object itself is a secondary relic of a procedure that explores the compulsion of the haptic by enticing the viewer to touch, prod, and reveal. Personal interaction is an essential part of Trove.

The artwork consists of 14 life-sized bronze artefacts hidden in plain sight within the streetscape in a way that suggests the presence of other denizens, past and present. A forgotten tool or abandoned treat that might be accidentally discovered by a passer-by, an offering or totem. It serves as an incomplete memory bank of the history of Melbourne’s Inner North. A kind of curated museum exhibition except the gallery is not behind institutional doors but rather hidden within the community’s streets. 

Whilst we live our lives in the present, our cultures are a rich stew of history and individual stories. The use of every-day and sometimes humble objects, each pointing to personal, historical or cultural stories presented in a way that creates intimate moments of discovery is what gives ‘Trove’ its impact. Each moment might be mundane or profound but together the collection of objects shows the value of our rich and diverse culture, a treasure that we sometimes miss in the distraction of our day to day lives.

Two keystone elements (Waa and Kooyang) represent our pre-invasion and contemporary indigenous culture. These two artworks were conceived and developed in close consultation with Elders Auntie Julieanne Axford and Auntie Gail Smith and are endorsed by the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.

I take this opportunity to acknowledge that that I live, work and made this artwork on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people. I am thankful for what I have learned in the process and pay my respects to their Elders past present and future and to all First Nations People.

Some of the objects share part of my own history as the daughter of post second world war European immigrants. Other pieces were conceived and developed in close consultation with members of Collingwood’s multicultural communities.

Special thanks to Meridian sculpture foundry for their excellent bronze casting.

Location

The individual artworks that make up Trove are distributed within three zones of the site, shown in the diagram below.
Discovery is a core part of Trove so remember to look up and down, all are in plain sight but some are quite small.
You can find two elements in Zone 1, two more in Zone 2 and ten in Zone 3.