bundoora homestead

Through the use of sensors and digital controls, FIDO talks to passers-by, wags its tail, wiggles its ears and lights up at night. The materials used, the form and the interactive nature of this monumental work were chosen specifically to respond to the friendliness and vitality of Fairfield Village and enhance the sense of community for this dog-loving precinct.

Six white sculptural components: a tall bud-like form, a reclining form that refers to various kinds of animals (possum, dugong), a round form that visitors to the park can sit on to view the artwork and three squarish forms that define the space the art is placed in and that park visitors can also sit on. The work relates to the themes outlined in the artists brief, particularly to the “Present” and “Future” with an emphasis on the natural environment. The colour and the reclining form, which appears embryonic, bring to mind birth and new beginnings and the bud, the flowering of life

The work consists of a sculpture and seat. The sculpture is a tree form and the seat is based on a leaf shape. History is evoked through the flora and fauna imagery, from Indigenous plants to those of the farms, back-yards and kitchen gardens of the area, and diversity is evoked primarily through figures holding hands. Both pieces are fabricated from powdercoated mild steel.

glass

This work consists of three “piles of rock-like forms” set in vertical formations. The work is made from clay and cement. The clay used in these pieces reflects the history of the site by referring to the earth and to the brick manufacturing that took place in the area. The formations of the rocks represent the strength of the community and the building blocks of our multicultural heritage.

The symbolic egg form at the heart of this design echoes the hope for recovery and new life, and for the rebirth of the land. The piece also references the conservation role of the park and in particular the role this park plays for the many birds that live and nest within. The 4 metre high egg form is made from recycled timbers and is designed to be tactile, organic and peaceful within the environment. (Objective A1455462)

This is a sculpture made from bands of steel formed into tall “crown-like or inverted “v” shapes”. The work has panels of etched copper with text in different languages riveted onto areas of the steel that overlap. The design expresses and reflects Darebin’s cultural diversity and the history of the site.

"This work is a snake that is constructed with a skeletal framework of thin strip steel and fencing wire. The framework is covered with Hessian which is then covered with three layers of fibreglass blanket and resin. The entire snake is painted with acrylic artist’s paints and acrylic house paint. The snake is approximately six metres long by one metre wide. This work represents “Mindi” the Red-Bellied Black Snake. The Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation regard “Mindi” as a spirit of good fortune. (Objective code A1571518)"

The Boroondara General Cemetery is registered by Heritage Victoria. The Henty's were some of the earliest settlers in Victoria.From Heritage Victoria Statement of Significance Last updated on - December 15, 2005 What is significant? Boroondara Cemetery, established in 1858, is within an unusual triangular reserve bounded by High Street, Park Hill Road and Victoria Park, Kew. The caretaker's lodge and administrative office (1860 designed by Charles Vickers, additions, 1866-1899 by Albert Purchas) form a picturesque two-storey brick structure with a slate roof and clock tower. A rotunda or shelter (1890, Albert Purchas) is located in the centre of the cemetery: this has an octagonal hipped roof with fish scale slates and a decorative brick base with a tessellated floor and timber seating. The cemetery is surrounded by a 2.7 metre high ornamental red brick wall (1895-96, Albert Purchas) with some sections of vertical iron palisades between brick pillars. Albert Purchas was a prominent Melbourne architect who was the Secretary of the Melbourne General Cemetery from 1852 to 1907 and Chairman of the Boroondara Cemetery Board of Trustees from 1867 to 1909. He made a significant contribution to the design of the Boroondara Cemetery Boroondara Cemetery is an outstanding example of the Victorian Garden Cemetery movement in Victoria, retaining key elements of the style, despite overdevelopment which has obscured some of the paths and driveways. Elements of the style represented at Boroondara include an ornamental boundary fence, a system of curving paths which are kerbed and follow the site's natural contours, defined views, recreational facilities such as the rotunda, a landscaped park like setting, sectarian divisions for burials, impressive monuments, wrought and cast iron grave surrounds and exotic symbolic plantings. In the 1850s cemeteries were located on the periphery of populated areas because of concerns about diseases like cholera. They were designed to be attractive places for mourners and visitors to walk and contemplate. Typically cemeteries were arranged to keep religions separated and this tended to maintain links to places of origin, reflecting a migrant society. Other developments included cast iron entrance gates, built in 1889 to a design by Albert Purchas; a cemetery shelter or rotunda, built in 1890, which is a replica of one constructed in the Melbourne General Cemetery in the same year; an ornamental brick fence erected in 1896-99(?); the construction and operation of a terminus for a horse tram at the cemetery gates during 1887-1915; and the Springthorpe Memorial built between 1897 and 1907. A brick cremation wall and a memorial rose garden were constructed near the entrance in the mid- twentieth century(c.1955-57) and a mausoleum completed in 2001.The maintenance shed/depot close to High Street was constructed in 1987. The original entrance was altered in 2000 and the original cast iron gates moved to the eastern entrance of the Mausoleum. The Springthorpe Memorial (VHR 522) set at the entrance to the burial ground commemorates Annie Springthorpe, and was erected between 1897 and 1907 by her husband Dr John Springthorpe. It was the work of the sculptor Bertram Mackennal, architect Harold Desbrowe Annear, landscape designer and Director of the Melbourne Bortanic Gardens, W.R. Guilfoyle, with considerable input from Dr Springthorpe The memorial is in the form of a small temple in a primitive Doric style. It was designed by Harold Desbrowe Annear and includes Bertram Mackennal sculptures in Carrara marble. Twelve columns of deep green granite from Scotland support a Harcourt granite superstructure. The roof by Brooks Robinson is a coloured glass dome, which sits within the rectangular form and behind the pediments. The sculptural group raised on a dais, consists of the deceased woman lying on a sarcophagus with an attending angel and mourner. The figure of Grief crouches at the foot of the bier and an angel places a wreath over Annie's head, symbolising the triumph of immortal life over death. The body of the deceased was placed in a vault below. The bronze work is by Marriots of Melbourne. Professor Tucker of the University of Melbourne composed appropriate inscriptions in English and archaic Greek lettering.. The floor is a geometric mosaic and the glass dome roof is of Tiffany style lead lighting in hues of reds and pinks in a radiating pattern. The memorial originally stood in a landscape triangular garden of about one acre near the entrance to the cemetery. However, after Dr Springthorpe's death in 1933 it was found that transactions for the land had not been fully completed so most of it was regained by the cemetery. A sundial and seat remain. The building is almost completely intact. The only alteration has been the removal of a glass canopy over the statuary and missing chains between posts. The Argus (26 March 1933) considered the memorial to be the most beautiful work of its kind in Australia. No comparable buildings are known. The Syme Memorial (1908) is a memorial to David Syme, political economist and publisher of the Melbourne Age newspaper. The Egyptian memorial designed by architect Arthur Peck is one of the most finely designed and executed pieces of monumental design in Melbourne. It has a temple like form with each column having a different capital detail. These support a cornice that curves both inwards and outwards. The tomb also has balustradings set between granite piers which create porch spaces leading to the entrance ways. Two variegated Port Jackson Figs are planted at either end. The Cussen Memorial (VHR 2036) was constructed in 1912-13 by Sir Leo Cussen in memory of his young son Hubert. Sir Leo Finn Bernard Cussen (1859-1933), judge and member of the Victorian Supreme Court in 1906. was buried here. The family memorial is one of the larger and more impressive memorials in the cemetery and is an interesting example of the 1930s Gothic Revival style architecture. It takes the form of a small chapel with carvings, diamond shaped roof tiles and decorated ridge embellishing the exterior. By the 1890s, the Boroondara Cemetery was a popular destination for visitors and locals admiring the beauty of the grounds and the splendid monuments. The edge of suburban settlement had reached the cemetery in the previous decade. Its Victorian garden design with sweeping curved drives, hill top views and high maintenance made it attractive. In its Victorian Garden Cemetery design, Boroondara was following an international trend. The picturesque Romanticism of the Pere la Chaise garden cemetery established in Paris in 1804 provided a prototype for great metropolitan cemeteries such as Kensal Green (1883) and Highgate (1839) in London and the Glasgow Necropolis (1831). Boroondara Cemetery was important in establishing this trend in Australia. The cemetery's beauty peaked with the progressive completion of the spectacular Springthorpe Memorial between 1899 and 1907. From about the turn of the century, the trustees encroached on the original design, having repeatedly failed in attempts to gain more land. The wide plantations around road boundaries, grassy verges around clusters of graves in each denomination, and most of the landscaped surround to the Springthorpe memorial are now gone. Some of the original road and path space were resumed for burial purposes. The post war period saw an increased use of the Cemetery by newer migrant groups. The mid- to late- twentieth century monuments were often placed on the grassed edges of the various sections and encroached on the roadways as the cemetery had reached the potential foreseen by its design. These were well tended in comparison with Victorian monuments which have generally been left to fall into a state of neglect. The Boroondara Cemetery features many plants, mostly conifers and shrubs of funerary symbolism, which line the boundaries, road and pathways, and frame the cemetery monuments or are planted on graves. The major plantings include an impressive row of Bhutan Cypress (Cupressus torulosa), interplanted with Sweet Pittosporum (Pittosporum undulatum), and a few Pittosporum crassifolium, along the High Street and Parkhill Street, where the planting is dominated by Sweet Pittosporum. Planting within the cemetery includes rows and specimen trees of Bhutan Cypress and Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), including a row with alternate plantings of both species. The planting includes an unusual "squat" form of an Italian Cypress. More of these trees probably lined the cemetery roads and paths. Also dominating the cemetery landscape near the Rotunda is a stand of 3 Canary Island Pines (Pinus canariensis), a Bunya Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii) and a Weeping Elm (Ulmus glabra 'Camperdownii') Amongst the planting are the following notable conifers: a towering Bunya Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii), a Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), a rare Golden Funeral Cypress (Chamaecyparis funebris 'Aurea'), two large Funeral Cypress (Chamaecyparis funebris), and the only known Queensland Kauri (Agathis robusta) in a cemetery in Victoria. The Cemetery records, including historical plans of the cemetery from 1859, are held by the administration and their retention enhances the historical significance of the Cemetery. How is it significant? Boroondara Cemetery is of aesthetic, architectural, scientific (botanical) and historical significance to the State of Victoria. Why is it significant? The Boroondara Cemetery is of historical and aesthetic significance as an outstanding example of a Victorian garden cemetery. The Boroondara Cemetery is of historical significance as a record of Victorian life from the 1850s, and the early settlement of Kew. It is also significant for its ability to demonstrate, through the design and location of the cemetery, attitudes towards burial, health concerns and the importance placed on religion, at the time of its establishment. The Boroondara Cemetery is of architectural significance for the design of the gatehouse or sexton's lodge and cemetery office (built in stages from 1860 to 1899), the ornamental brick perimeter fence and elegant cemetery shelter to the design of prominent Melbourne architects, Charles Vickers (for the original 1860 cottage) and Albert Purchas, cemetery architect and secretary from 1864 to his death in 1907. The Boroondara Cemetery has considerable aesthetic significance which is principally derived from its tranquil, picturesque setting; its impressive memorials and monuments; its landmark features such as the prominent clocktower of the sexton's lodge and office, the mature exotic plantings, the decorative brick fence and the entrance gates; its defined views; and its curving paths. The Springthorpe Memorial (VHR 522), the Syme Memorial and the Cussen Memorial (VHR 2036), all contained within the Boroondara Cemetery, are of aesthetic and architectural significance for their creative and artistic achievement. The Boroondara Cemetery is of scientific (botanical) significance for its collection of rare mature exotic plantings. The Golden Funeral Cypress, (Chamaecyparis funebris 'Aurea') is the only known example in Victoria. The Boroondara Cemetery is of historical significance for the graves, monuments and epitaphs of a number of individuals whose activities have played a major part in Australia's history. They include the Henty family, artists Louis Buvelot and Charles Nuttall, businessmen John Halfey and publisher David Syme, artist and diarist Georgiana McCrae, actress Nellie Stewart and architect and designer of the Boroondara and Melbourne General Cemeteries, Albert Purchas.Digital imagescemetery, boroondara, kew, gatehouse, clock, tower, clocktower, heritage, memorial, henty, james henty

A curving stainless steel sculpture of linked human figures, 4 metres wide, 2 metres deep and 2.5 metres high. The Connection depicts many people coming together in an animated, alive way, the separate components becoming one. It refers to the meaningful links between different groups in the community and the connections which contribute to harmony in Darebin.

Two petal-shaped forms made of galvanised steel. The petals represent voyage, destination and arrival to a new place.

Galvanised steel structures shaped like doors or windows with etched copper panels with images on them and patinated surface colour. The designs express and reflect Darebin’s cultural diversity and the history of the site, from the land of which the Wurundjeri are the traditional custodians, to brick works (Northcote Brick Company) and then finally as the Northcote Landfill.

"AN UNCANNY LIKENESS It’s difficult to escape the flight of the imagination in Lynda Draper’s new work. Set within a dream-like milieu, an anthology of wondrous and majestic objects float and bob in space. Referencing kings and queens, and the flamboyance of the French Baroque, these large filigree works are woven from clay, and while not explicitly figurative, possess familiar facial markers which bring into play the metaphysical qualities attributed to inanimate objects by human memory and experience. Draper spent the European winter near Versailles, where marble sculptures set among the gardens are shrouded in the winter months to prevent frost from taking its toll on precarious limbs. And while the influence from her residency is certainly evident, rather than stimulating work of this nature, it has merely activated and amplified elements of her recent practice. From smaller ‘tiaras’ in 2016, her work has evolved into sizeable ‘crowned portraits’ of clay. Hovering somewhere between the real and the unreal, these works are architectural and figurative, formed and formless, literal and fictional. They bewitch and amuse, revealing multiple characters and personalities only after careful observation. The medium of clay is so exquisitely anomalous in Draper’s work that it becomes, to the viewer, an afterthought rather than a dialogue prompt for works that are traditionally contextualised by their medium. And this is how it should be. Clay has undergone a renaissance in the past decade or so; no longer is it in the domain of craft. With a strong conceptual narrative and by pushing the medium beyond its natural limits, ceramicists like Draper can be counted among Australia’s significant artists who contribution is gaining ground in contemporary art discourse. And yet, it is the use of clay which makes Draper’s work so utterly extraordinary. Ambitious in scale, virtuosic in composition, she has the ability to make the unmakeable. Drawing from a conventional practice of coiling and handbuilding, the maker’s hand is evident on every square inch of her work. The uneven coils are shaped by the impressions of her grip on the responsive nature of the material. But Draper somehow dispenses with the inherent limitations of the soft clay medium, manipulating it in a way which defies physics and logic. Her award-winning installation for the Sidney Myer Australian Ceramic Award in 2019 is testament to an artist whose practice has consolidated. Her ambition, robust conceptual thinking and technical understanding of materials have reached a zenith which has been rewarded her with one of the most prestigious prizes in Australian art"

Wooden poles made from treated pine with painted designs in acrylic paint. The work also includes 12 Redgum “stepping stones” set into the ground in concrete pads.

Two large boat forms with mosaic inlays. The mosaic inlays have been crafted by local primary school students. The “Sunken” boat represents the Merri Creek and some of its important elements as if seen through a magnifying glass

This artwork consists of a large work formed like a sign outside the Stuzzi Restaurant. A large, stylised eye, with steel eyelashes, the work is constructed from steel and fibreglass.

Your Place is Empty is an expression used in Iran as a way of saying ‘you were missed’. The works in this show are like spaces left behind when someone or something is gone, temporarily or permanently. They are disjointed, fading memories of a long time ago. They have become unreliable fragments, manifesting like floor plans of a childhood home drawn from memory. But the lines are disjointed, no longer connecting enough to make any discernible maps. They are fading trails. Artist Bio Exploring notions of home and memory, Hootan Heydari (Born 1970 in Tehran) melds personal and political histories that often centre on the moment of 1979 when his family fled Iran following the Islamic revolution. Working predominately in sculpture and photography, his work distils echoes of the past into the now with richness and ache. Biographically loaded objects with poetic potencies, such as family photographs and cassette tapes, are at times repetitively stacked and frozen in stillness in custom-made cabinets. Plaster is frequently used as a strong yet fragile material to both coat and cast, associated with building homes and healing broken bones. Farsi text often features – an Iranian refrain that breaks down linear time. Threading through Hootan’s practice is futility, compulsion and repetition: hallmarks of the act of making and the act of remembering.

Wall Kisser is a kinetic sculpture that is hand-cranked by the viewer. On turning the handle the wall receives the repetitive, kiss-thud, kiss-thud of the leather and velvet hearts which have been padded out with dried lavender and rosemary from the artist's garden (a version of an 18th Century pot pourri recipe commonly used to ward off disease and disguise bad smells). The sculpture's rotating form is loosely based on the design of a vibrator that the artist saw online: an electromechanical wheel of 10 plastic ‘tongues’. This sculpture was part of a body of work entitled Gorgeous, first presented at the inaugural Ellen José Art Award at Bayside Gallery in 2022. Gorgeous was an exhibition that imagined the physical gallery (walls, floor space), as if an abstract version of a lover’s body. Gartside explains, "I am curious about the potential connections between a viewer and an artwork... What could we ask of viewers beyond their attention, and as artists, what can we offer? What is possible when both artwork and viewer have skin in the game? In this work I am teasing out possibilities for eliciting surprise, delight, humour through art, and offering my gratitude for the 'lover' type relationship that I have with my art practice." Artist Bio Hannah Gartside works across kinetic sculpture, installation and quilt-making. Characteristically sensual and poetic, her works transform and in some cases animate, found fabrics and clothing and ephemera to articulate experiences and sensations of longing, tenderness, care, desire and fury. Her solo presentation Bunnies in Love, Lust and Longing at Melbourne Art Fair (February, 2025), received the Richard Parker Award. Recent commissions include Forest Summons (for Lilith) at the Ian Potter Centre: National Gallery of Victoria for Melbourne Now, 2023, and Loie, Lilith, Sarah, Pixie and Artemisia for Primavera 2021: Young Australian Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2024, Gartside was a recipient of an Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, from the Samstag Museum, University of South Australia. She will commence an MFA in Europe in late 2025. Her sculpture #19 (Series: Bunnies in Love, Lust and Longing) was the winner of the Woollahra Small Sculpture Award in 2024. Gartside has undertaken residencies at Australian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne (2020) and in California at the Varda Artist Residency (2017). Gartside received a Bachelor of Fine Art (Sculpture) Honours from University of Melbourne, Victorian College of the Arts, in 2019, and a BFA (Fashion Design) Honours from Queensland University of Technology in 2010. Prior to her visual art training, Gartside worked as costume-maker and dresser for five years, mainly on productions for Queensland Ballet. Her work is held in the collections of Wangaratta Art Gallery, Wesfarmers, Ararat Gallery TAMA, Darebin City Council, MECCA and Artbank. She is represented by Tolarno Galleries.

'Tropical Flesh (ii)' draws upon the slippery experience of identity to explore family connection. There are threads of dislocation and the thickness of tropical time. Silicone casts of tropical jackfruits are fused with a cast of the artists’ aunt’s foot, the cast of which was made upon her permanent return to Thailand. Together, the visibly-aged foot and a fruit that decays quite vividly, evokes a sense of time passing. The work is informed by the experience of witnessing members of family age in slices of time, across vast distances. The artist asks us to consider the work as a memento mori. Artist Bio Nathan Beard is a multidisciplinary artist whose work draws from his Australian-Thai heritage to unpack the porous and precarious influences of culture and memory. Through the incorporation of exchanges with his family and archives alongside broader cultural signifiers of ‘Thainess’, Beard playfully express the complexities surrounding authenticity and diasporic identity. Recent exhibitions include A Puzzlement, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2022), Husk, FUTURES (2022), Low Yield Fruit, sweet pea (2022), White Gilt 2.0, Firstdraft (2020), A dense intimacy (with Lindy Lee), Bus Projects (2019) and WA Focus: Nathan Beard, Art Gallery of Western Australia (2017). In 2022 Beard completed an Australia Council residency at ACME Studios, London. He has been a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize (2021) the Churchie emerging art prize (2020), and participated in the 4A Beijing Studio Program (2017), and the Gertrude Contemporary Studio Program (2023-2025).

Uncle Jack Charles was a respected Aboriginal elder, a Bunerong, Boon Wurrung, Yorta Yorta, Palawa, Wurundjeri, Tungerong man, and an internationally acclaimed actor, mentor and activist. This inspirational, Indigenous gay man was part of the stolen generation and was taken from his family as a tiny baby. He survived the impact of this early childhood trauma by using drugs. Without support or housing, he was often homeless and imprisoned for long periods of time. True artistic recognition came only later in life. Often the most talented members of our community struggle with addiction and homelessness. This work asks us to take a closer look at the way the state criminalises human responses to trauma, which the state itself has often inflicted, willing us to face history more bravely and to treasure people sooner. Uncle Jack made profound and lasting change in legislation and public awareness on Aboriginality, criminality, and social justice in Australia. After his death there was an outpouring of grief across the country. Leonie worked closely with Uncle Jack over a decade developing this collection and now works with the Charles family to grow his legacy, which continues to positively impact the lives of thousands of people. Artist Bio Leonie Rhodes is an acquired and award-winning multidisciplinary artist from London, working in Brisbane (Meanjin) and Melbourne (Narm) on unceded Jagera, Turrbal, Wurundjeri, Woi Wurrung and Bunurong Boon Wurrung land. Leonie studied sculpture at Chelsea School of Art London, and figurative sculpture at the New York Studio School, NY. Influenced by the aesthetics of urban and digital counter-cultures, metropolitan space and the figurative history of art, Leonie is interested in modes of practice that engage the wider public in the outdoors and online. This socially engaged and skills-based practice is driven by the forging of relationships, community, and the work’s potential to provoke emotion and psychological insights which reinforce connections within and between people and their environment. Narrative and affect itself sit at the intersection of diverse modes of practice including abstract and figurative sculpture, DJing, digital art, mentoring, events, and large participatory installations. By using traditional hand-sculpting techniques, Leonie models a sense of life into clay, wax, and bronze. Working representationally, subtle abstractions take influence from the personality of each subject or the unique surroundings of the installation. Issues of identity, marginalisation and mental health in civic space are explored through relatable stories with thought provoking theoretical content, told via subjects close to the artist, on accessible public platforms.

This stump one of several replacements. Black and white photograph of carved tree stump on Omeo Road known as Mr Stringy East Gippslandsculpture, local history

Tsatsas are small votive tablets shaped like deities, stupas, or sacred symbols. Buddhists may vow to create 100,000 tsatsas for purification and merit. These can be placed as an offering in holy sites, home altars, or gau boxes. Traditionally made of clay using moulds, tsatsas are dried, decorated, and blessed with mantras.Portable nature of tsatsas allows them to accompany practitioners on journeys, providing spiritual protection and serving as a focus for prayer and meditation. Due to their inexpensive production and portability, tsatsas made a great contribution to the spread of Buddhism in Tibet. This tsatsa is of the Buddha in a sitting position, accompanied by two standing figures. The Buddha is richly adorned with delicate carvings around it. The tsatsa features inscriptions in an ancient script.buddhist art, tibetan buddhism, holy objects