Hard Core

Conservation Conversation, News, People News 20 September 2011

GML’s very own Martin Rowney recently entered a piece into the Willoughby Sculpture Prize 2011.

A major cultural event in the Spring Festival program run by Willoughby Council, the biannual exhibition attracts artists from across Australia to help celebrate the visual arts in our community.

Entrants were invited to respond to the theme ‘rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle’ and from 183 sculptures 51 were selected, providing an opportunity to exhibit works inside the recently opened Incinerator and throughout surrounding parklands.

Martin’s sculpture, entitled ‘Core’, was designed to draw people into thinking about the nature of archaeological sites and the very specific nature of the debris we leave behind.

Responding initially to the history and archaeology of the Willoughby Incinerator and its relationship to rubbish disposal, its philosophical leanings actually have merit on a much wider scale.

Says Martin, ‘Every place has a unique cultural signature. Even your very own backyard! Some are more tangible and realisable than others, but wherever you are, the archaeological record buried beneath your feet contains an individual story of the lives lived and artefacts lost at that site.’

Standing a magnificent 2.5m in height, and constructed from cement, sand, dirt and several archaeological artefacts, Core boldly reflects site development and the changing approaches to consumerism, materialism and waste—presenting imagined layers and strata that could conceivably be in the ground at Willoughby Incinerator.