General News
11 May, 2023
Local artist’s work honours First Nations women
Local Wurundjeri artist Georgia MacGuire has become part of history with a 4.6-metre-tall sculpture of hers on permanent display in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. Ms MacGuire, who lives in Creswick, created the artwork of an Aboriginal woman’s hand...
Local Wurundjeri artist Georgia MacGuire has become part of history with a 4.6-metre-tall sculpture of hers on permanent display in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.
Ms MacGuire, who lives in Creswick, created the artwork of an Aboriginal woman’s hand holding a woven basket with five other Ngardang Girri Kalat Mimini artists from Victoria.
“If I never do anything else with my art career, I’m happy,” she said.
The six women were commissioned to design the work as part of the Victorian Women’s Public Art Program.
“They [the State Government] are delivering five different monuments that recognise or celebrate women,” Ms MacGuire, who exhibits under the name Blackgin, said.
A survey revealed that of Melbourne’s 580 public statues, just 36 are women. Of those 36, only 10 depict real women, with the others representing fictional characters or symbolic figures.
“There are more public monuments to animals than to women (in Australia),” Ms MacGuire said.
The State Government is attempting to address this underrepresentation of women.
“I’m proud to launch this beautiful sculpture as part of the Victorian Women’s Public Art Program which is increasing the number of permanent public artworks celebrating women across the state,”
Minister for Women Natalie Hutchins said when the sculpture was unveiled on Saturday.
Ms MacGuire explained the six women worked together with industrial designers and fabricators to create their sculpture.
“We wove a basket and each of us did a few rows and it was only about 15 cm wide,” she said.
That tiny basket was used to create a mould, which was used to make an enormous version of the basket. The final basket and the hand it rests on are made from cemlite (a type of light concrete) coated in copper.
“You can see the variations of stitches from each of the artists and we kind of wanted that to be representing of all the different tribes of Victoria,” Ms MacGuire said.
The artists drew on their own stories of women in their families and mobs.
The final artwork is named Creative Resilience and the women landscaped around it with a small native garden and pebble creek.
“The plan is to set it up as a reflective place and a place that we can run weaving workshops,” Ms MacGuire said.
She said that she cried when she saw the installed piece for the first time last week.
“I was just blown away. It was so exciting. I went back and had a look in the evening. It looks phenomenal all lit up at night. There’s lighting within the basket as well so it kind of glows.”
Ms MacGuire and her fellow artists Annie Brigdale, Lorraine Brigdale, Janet Bromley, Trina Dalton-Oogjes and Glenda Nicholls attended Saturday’s launch in Melbourne.
As part of their project, they worked with a cultural reference group led by Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Di Kerr.
“It used to be the women’s hospital [where the sculpture is],” Ms MacGuire said.
“Aunty Di said she was born there but she was born on the balcony because at the time Aboriginal women weren’t allowed inside the building. It’s got a bit of a checkered history so it’s really nice to be able to kind of reclaim that.”
Ms MacGuire previously worked as the Reconciliation Officer at Central Goldfields Shire and was the 2013 winner of the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards for her three-dimensional artwork of a paper bark dress. She is now a full time artist.
Creative Resilience can be viewed day or night outside the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.
