Parkville; Shelter and Grace

Postera crescam laude

PARKVILLE; SHELTER AND GRACE KATE DAW AND STEWART RUSSELL ARTISTIC DIRECTORS

‘ I shall grow in the esteem of future generations’

Front Cover Image: 1878 / 2017 / 2156 Logo by Alex Selenitsch, 2017 Image to right: Moving of the Cussonia Spicata in 1989, photograph by Norman Wodetzki. (UMA)

CONTENTS 1

Introduction

3

Concept Outline

5

Research

6

Site Histories

10

Production Methodologies

14

Production Partners

15

Analysis of Costs

17

Art Projects

27

Researched Examples

INTRODUCTION The commission brief invited us to develop an over-arching artwork concept, offsetting the event of the trees removal, to connect the history of the site to the future of the site.

The source material for artistic expression was the useable timber, salvaged from the tree removals. It was imagined that the opportunities identified would be a mixture of temporary and permanent responses.

It was envisaged that the research, findings and ideas, would establish the foundation research and conceptual thinking necessary to inform the commissioning of art projects.

Commission Context The Metro Tunnel is one of the largest public transport projects ever undertaken in Australia and the first major investment in Melbourne’s CBD rail capacity since the City Loop was completed 30 years ago.

The Metro Tunnel will create a new end-to-end rail line from the west to the south-east, with high capacity metropolitan trains and five new underground stations.

Importantly, the alignment provides the opportunity to connect passengers to Arden, Parkville and Domain via heavy rail for the first time and provide much-needed relief to the heavily congested Swanston Street /St Kilda Road tram corridor, currently the busiest in the world.

One of the 5 new underground stations will be Parkville with entrances located at University of Melbourne on Grattan Street.

Before major construction on the Metro Tunnel begins in 2017-18, a range of early works will be undertaken to prepare locations along the alignment for construction.

These works will include the removal of a significant number of trees located on University of Melbourne grounds. The loss of the trees will, in the short term, negatively impact the campus environment, through loss of landscape and loss of canopy and shade.

This project is an opportunity for artists to frame a cultural response to the loss of significant trees and input, an artists perspective, at an early stage of considerations around the changing landscape of the southern boundary of the Parkville campus.

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an artwork that exists in the future, but somehow not in the present.

CONCEPT OUTLINE Parkville; Shelter and Grace. Underpinning our research for this creative project are two main anchors.

The engagement with history and future The first is the image of Walter Benjamin’s angel of history. In a small painting by Paul Klee, an angel, catapulting towards the sun, looks back at the world it is leaving, allowing for an intense, rich moment of simultaneous past and future reflection. Benjamin took inspiration from this image, and in 1940 he wrote movingly on the ability to look both back and forward into culture and time.

“The Klee painting, titled Angelus Novus, shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed.

But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”1 The inspiration from this concept has been applied to the removal of much-loved and valued trees from an urban site. We need to acknowledge their importance while moving forward with future projects and visions.

The acknowledgement and memorializing of them are important, as is the presentation of visions of and for the future, for generations of staff and students at the University.

Art is a brilliant mechanism for realizing all of this potential, as we aim to demonstrate with this report.

The unique feature of the University site; relationships based on learning and the sharing of pedagogical information The second anchor is the unique ability of the University to support and sustain pedagogical relationships of all kinds; between students and academic staff, artists and mentors, professors and their PhD candidates, technical experts and curators of museums.

Across every field in the University, the transfer and engagement of knowledge, ideas, learning, wisdom, experimentation, risk and creativity flourish and grow every day.

As obvious as this may be, it is a fact that is inspiring to many, and we want to build these narratives and histories into our project in a meaningful way. We feel that it must be at the core of our creative response and this aspect of our research has greatly influenced all of our key projects.

1

Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, New York: Schocken Books, 1969: 249

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“Environmental stresses, wounding, fire scars and insect infestations tell the story of a tree’s life. Looked at in this way, a tree is like a book; it’s history can inform the design process and determine a particular way to cut the timber to open its pages.”

RESEARCH We reference the 1878 landscape design that resulted in the boulevard of English Elm running the length of Royal Parade, to the Gratten Street corner. This timeline became an important conceptual boundary for the projects research.

We have uncovered a series of rich ideas, histories and narratives from both the immediate University community and a broader field of craftspeople, artists, academics and ground staff. We have learnt what we can about the actual trees, their histories and unique qualities as well as their immediate surrounds and the expanded site.

We envisage the project structured to enable a diverse range of voices and viewpoints, including an indigenous perspective through all aspects of artwork outcomes.

Our contact with Andrew Gay, Grounds Supervisor, has been most valuable. Andrew has taken us through the provenance of the trees, and will be a key participant (in an advisory capacity) in all of our projects, as his corporate knowledge, pragmatism and care of the local environment is unique. Andrew has communicated his knowledge of both the trees, and importantly, the current landscape and gardens of the University and will be an important consultant in any future projects we proceed with.

We have researched wood mills and key experts in this field, and have a developed and evolving strategy for the wood, including its methods for cutting, drying and storing the wood of the removed trees. We have identified Tim Kennedy as an expert in this field, as he also has experience and good understanding of cultural projects.

We have read widely around the subject of trees and landscape, and been inspired by both the University history and commitment to its landscape, as well as learning more about ancient landscapes and features of the landscape historically. Historian John Matthews has been commissioned to produce site histories of the University grounds and has produced a remarkable document ( attached in full to this report) that will provide invaluable information and research resources for us, including a variety of stunning historical images.

Left: Tim Kennedy, conversation, February 2017

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SITE HISTORIES Early on we understood that our role in this project would be equal parts artist and curator. We imagined being an artist invited to consider the material and the site for the development of new work. We knew how vital the individual trees histories and a history of the wider site would be for any commissioning processes to come.

Other than the System Garden, detailed knowledge of tree planting within the boundary of the University was not coming to us in the form of records. We decided to interview two key figures, the current custodians of the plan, head grounds person Andrew Gay and arborist Virginia McNally. We recorded their knowledge of the specimens being removed, tree by tree, to collect as much currently held information around the planting and species selection processes as possible.

The filmed interviews brought out additional information about the site, knowledge on trees that had been planted but not thrived, their understanding of the suitability of species to certain locations and their potential interaction with the buildings.

We also commissioned John Matthews to provide the wider context, charting the development of the University site from the perspective of tree planting. His exploration followed masterplans, schemes and the individuals that might affect the thinking and historical sequences of tree planting within the boundaries of the Parkville campus.

“The first years of the University’s formation were clearly difficult and this can perhaps be evidenced in the high turn-over of formally appointed gardeners, beginning first in May 1856 with William Hyndman and then essentially one per year until the arrival of Alexander Elliot in December of 1861.2 Elliot was responsible for the continued development and maintenance of the renowned System or Botanic Garden3, in the campus’ northwest corner and oversaw the creation of the ornamental lake and the development of the Main Drive and Wilson Hall plantings. He was arguably the most significant gardener at the Carlton campus, becoming a familiar name to Melbournians through his appearances at gardening shows and considered advice, routinely featured in gardening articles of the day; he died in office in 1901.”

John’s site research indicated surprisingly few overarching schemes we could match to the presence / location of individual trees. It seemed the creation of Parkville came about through a more responsive, trial and error approach with clear fingerprints few and far between.

However, the Parkville campus has undoubtedly become a significant site for trees in Melbourne. Through the re-use and re-purposing of timbers salvaged, this project builds on a history of arbor culture at the University of Melbourne that deserves more research and better recognition.

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“The Parkville campus has over 2000 trees and 10,000 shrubs, conservatively valued at $50 million. On campus there are eight trees included on the National Trust Significant Tree Register, and 68 trees on the City of Melbourne’s Exceptional Tree Register.” 4 The current University community inherits the custodianship of the ‘park’ environment of the campus and this next period of development provides an opportunity to acknowledge the past and plan for the future.

“There are hundreds of years of history here,” said Dr Jennifer Henry AWCUM president, whose family has attended the University of Melbourne for four generations, “ my great grandfather was here in the 1920s and some of these trees were already old then ”.5

Map of Grattan Street trees listed on City of Melbourne’s Exceptional Tree Register 2012

37 trees listed as exceptional at : Melbourne University – 156 Grattan Street, Parkville.

Juliet Flesch, Minding the Shop: People and Events that shaped The Department of Property & Buildings 1853-2003 at The University of Melbourne, Melbourne 2004, p 233 3 Conceived by the Professor of Natural Science, Frederick McCoy, with the design assistance and guidance of Bateman, the System Garden was a complex, lengthy and frought undertaking that eventually isolated McCoy from both administrators and gardeners.

4 MUSSE, 15.04.2016 5 Ibid 2

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None of the trees being considered for removal are listed on the City of Melbourne, Exceptional Tree register.

Update – trees to be removed ( received 15.02.2017 )

City of Melbourne Exceptional Tree register

156 Grattan Street, Parkville

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Pseudopanax lessonii, Houpara

57

Ulmus procera, English Elm

60

Ginkgo biloba, Maiden Hair Tree

61

Magnolia grandiflora, Bull Bay

58 62

64 66 68 70 72

74 76 79 83 87 90 94 98

102 106

Salix babylonica, Weeping Willow Ginkgo biloba, Maiden Hair Tree

Fagus sylvatica, Purple Beech Ulmus procera, English Elm

– Grevillea robusta, Silky Oak – Maclura pomifera, Osage Orange

– Jubaea chilensis, Chilean Wine Palm

Taxodium cronatum, Montezuma Cypress Eucalyptus saligna, Sydney Blue Gum Pinus canariensis, Canary Island Pine

Phoenix canariensis, Canary Island Palm Eucalyptus cladocalyx, Sugar Gum

Eucalyptus camaldulensis, River Red Gum

59 63 65 67

69 71

73 75

78 81 85 89 92

Metasequoia glyptostrobs, Dawn Redwood 96

Ulmus procera, English Elm

– Cedrus deodara, Deodar Cedar

– Corymbia maculata, Spotted Gum – Phoenix dactylifera, Date Palm

Taxodium distichum, Dawn Redwood Ficus Platypoda, Rock Fig

Brachychiton discolor, White Kurrainong Catalpa bignonioides, Indian Bean Tree Magnolia grandiflora, Bull Bay

Cedrus deodara, Deodar Cedar Eucalyptus globulus, Blue Gum

Eucalyptus camaldulensis, River Red Gum Cussonia spicata, Cabbage Tree Platanus Xacerifolia, Plane Tree

Ulmus glabra ‘Pendula’, Weeping Elm

100 Phytolacca dioica, Ombu

Platanus Xacerifolia, Plane Tree

108 Eucalyptus cladocalyx, Sugar Gum

Picconia excelsa, Canary Island Laurel

104 Corymbia maculata, Spotted Gum

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/exceptional-tree-register.pdf

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PRODUCTION METHODOLOGIES Assessment of useable timber A preliminary assessment, Timber Volume Calculations, undertaken by Arbor Safe, 22.12. 2016 indicates potentially 88 cubic metres of useable timber.

The Preliminary Fauna and Timber Re-use Survey 24.01.2016 undertaken by Melbourne Tree Care, assessed the trees in the ground for useable timber, broadly in three categories, un-useable, suitable for chipping and suitable for milling.

The survey lists 35 trees as owned by University of Melbourne and 12 English Elms listed as owned by City of Melbourne.

We established that the trees would have to be assessed ‘in the round’ after their removal from site to collect a true picture of useable volumes.

The site nominated for the removed trees is Laurens St / Barwise St, North Melbourne, south of Arden St (VicTrack Land). We recommend a speedy assessment, after the trees have been cut down and delivered to site, to clearly understand the quality and quantity of usable timber.

Tim Kennedy’s background as an arborist, mill owner, artist and woodworker gave us an appreciation of how the trees might be best assessed and an understanding that the stories recorded in the timber might be important to an artist.

“Environmental stresses, wounding, fire scars and insect infestations tell the story of a tree’s life. Looked at in this way, a tree is like a book; it’s history can inform the design process and determine a particular way to cut the timber to open its pages.”6 This approach resonated with us and we recommend engaging Tim Kennedy’s particularly appropriate knowledge set, for assessment of useable timbers. We see this as a solid base for assessing possible outcomes for art projects and building materials.

Delivery to site and storage It’s important for future costs and identification that the logs are delivered to the site neatly in lengths, and where possible located in types. The time taken to reconfigure logs dumped in piles might preclude them being financially viable to mill.

The space allocated for the delivery of the logs should be open enough to allow for the milling to be undertaken on site, ie the logs should not be in a corner or inaccessible.

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Tim Kennedy, conversation, February 2017

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Drying and Milling We recommend milling at the North Melbourne site using a transportable Woodmizer mill.

This will eliminate transportation costs and keep the project close to the University, and identified production partners, the Victorian Woodworkers Association and WMU. Trees that are assessed as suitable for milling can be assessed and ‘matched’ to art projects and / or building projects.

Wood volumes assessed as appropriate for art projects and / or building projects will require a specific cost analysis for milling, drying & storing timber.

The end use and timeframe will drive decisions around kiln dried or air dried, thickness, type of cut, profile, etc.

In case our preferred option of milling on site is not possible, we have spoken to local mills, arborists and the woodworking community and advise that there are enough suitable businesses locally to gather competitive quotes for milling and storing.

Building material We anticipate some timber assessed as suitable for milling will be appropriate for desired art projects and for building projects and will have to be prioritised between the two.

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Paper making and chipping We identified paper ( created from the trees removed from the site ), as a potentially significant material for the production and delivery of art projects.

We initially researched the suitability of trees removed being incorporated into main stream paper production, as we were keen to explore ideas around book publishing, commissioning texts, students drawing pads, commissioning graphics for poster campaigns, University certificates… and the like.

The only commercial paper mill in Victoria is Australian Paper, based in Gippsland.

Their requirements for the presentation of timber were too narrow and specialised to be able to accommodate this scale of project.

We turned our attention to bespoke paper makers and found local expertise producing rudimentary artisan papers using basic technologies.

We met with Louise Seymour, Director, Paperlab, who has a background in biomedicine. Through consultation with us she has recommended a methodology for the production of an innovative, rudimentary paper, using the wood and foliage of the trees, that enables large sheets of paper ready for printing and drawing on.

This method will see paper being created from sawdust, leaves, chipped wood and paper sourced from the University’s recycle system. This blend of the old and new, wood and paper, leaves and texts, will result in a body of paper that is completely unique and bespoke.

This paper, would become the raw material and context for the works proposed in the project Time. Time would commission a series of works by some of Australia’s most respected visual artists, who will be asked to consider visions of the future in conversation with a number of the University’s most senior and respected academics.

Pulp for small scale paper making is typically created from : 50% sawdust, (created from milling) , 30% recycled paper and 20% wood chip. The trees assessed not suitable for milling, but suitable for chipping can be utilised in the process of bespoke paper making.

The heartwood and sapwood are used to make the pulp for paper production as the bark contains less useful fibre.

The sawdust from milling and the chipping will be the key to the paper making and can be simply bagged on the milling / chipping site.

In summary the expertise and the materials are available locally to produce small runs of paper that would suit ideas identified for art projects, particularly the posters commissioned from artists for the Time project.

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Paper created by Louise Seymour, Paperlab

PRODUCTION PARTNERS Victorian Woodworkers Association The Victorian Woodworkers Association is the leading woodcraft guild in Victoria.

Its membership includes professional designer/makers, artists working with wood, students and industry organisations.

The VWA are based at the Meat Market on Courtney Street, North Melbourne.

Courtney Street is the extension of Grattan Street beyond Flemington Road, approximately 800m from the corner of Grattan Street and Royal Parade.

The VWA initiates exhibitions, skills workshops and the School of Woodcraft running a programme of master classes.

We met with VWA President Jerome Wielens to discuss the possible involvement of the VWA members as a key production partner. Jerome is a University of Melbourne alumni and previously a medical researcher at University of Melbourne, this intimate connection to site was understood as important.

We discussed the overarching themes of the project and canvassed working with the VWA collectively and individually. We talked about the role ‘technical collaboration’ working with artists from strong research based practices to realise informed and technically ambitious outcomes.

We recommend that the VWA are perfectly placed to unearth the stories told by the wood and add a layer to the final results. We found common ground and a shared vocabulary around The Hanging Studio Table project led by VWA member Adam Markowitz and again through Storm a project for City of Melbourne using English Elms damaged during the 2004 storms.

Woodworkers of Melbourne University Stakeholder engagement, involving the University of Melbourne community, where ever possible. The project will provide opportunities to introduce the Woodworkers of Melbourne University, a woodworking club established in 2015, to the VWA established in the 1970’s.

The WMU has already attracted 40 members and we see opportunities to enable a working relationship and establish lines of communication with the VWA. The project would create pathways to future opportunities.

Paperlab Paperlab is a small business run by Louise Seymour. Paperlab runs paper making workshops and devises technological solutions for small scale, bespoke paper making. Interestingly like Jerome Wielens from VWA, Louise’s background is in biomedicine research.

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ANALYSIS OF COSTS Assessment of useable timber Given the project timelines and timber drying times associated with the implementation of projects, we have gathered information on the costs associated with; the assessment of useable timber, milling and the storage of timber.

These figures are not quotes, just an indication, gleaned from research, of costs associated with the individual tasks to make ready timber for projects.

An assessment of useable timber, on the ground. We are recommending an assessment

by Tim Kennedy, costs, assuming logs are stacked neatly in North Melbourne yard, $500 - $1,000.

Timber drying times would be covered as part of the ‘on the ground’ assessment of useable timbers.

Milling Timber Volumes Calculations, undertaken by Arbor Safe 22.12. 2016 indicates potentially 88 cubic metres of useable timber. We have used this volume when researching the possible costs associated with milling and storing. If we end up finding a match for less timber the costs will be reduced.

We attempted to explore costs through a process identifying local mills capable of : accepting the logs en masse, conducting the assessment of useable timber, storing as logs and finally milling as and when projects came to fruition.

We’ve since changed tack and are now in favour of a process that sees the logs stay in North Melbourne for assessment of usable timber, and milled on site with a transportable Woodmizer mill.

The Woodmizer Mill produces better quality milled timber than a Lucas Mill. If the decision was to mill all the useable timber, 88 cubic metres, an estimate of costs for the site set-up, log sorting and milling to specifications on the North Melbourne site with a Woodmizer transportable Mill we found to be in the region of $30,000 - $40,000.

Storage & drying We envisage the best solution for storage would be to rack and store under cover at the North Melbourne site.

We have not been able to explore the possibilty, nor the costs associated with, storing milled timber at the nominated site in North Melbourne.

Alternatively, in case storing at a North Melbourne site proves impractical, we have looked at the costs associated with storing the milled timber off site, again working with the assessed yield of 88 cubic metres. The job would initially require the stack sorting and forklifting of the milled timber, racked appropriately for drying, into containers and transported out of Melbourne to be stored and monitored.

We are advised that 88 cubic metres yield would require 6 containers, for this quantity of milled timber, and storage could cost $15,000 - $20,000 per annum.

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ART PROJECTS At the heart of our research has been the consideration of the material potential of the trees and how to assess what’s useable and how best to transform the timber into appropriate, conceptually innovative, creative outcomes.

The two main materials we are working with, paper and wood, both have extraordinary art and design histories and extraordinary creative production values. In order to both celebrate and commemorate the trees and their site, the projects and artists we have identified as potential participants for these projects all have a strong conceptual engagement with the materials, site and histories they work with.

In order to reference the University’s research focus and history, we have identified artists with a strong research element to their practice, as well as nationally significant artists that are University alumni (from the VCA).

Further to this we have identified a range of international artists renowned for their groundbreaking work in relation to the natural world and contemporary issues, such as ecology, time and culture/nature based art work.

We have identified the following four projects through our research that we believe will deliver the highest and best response to the removal of the trees and the subsequent use of the material, site and context to create a suite of truly innovative and memorable creative artworks. They are: LOGOS TIME THE WAITING ROOM COMMISSIONS

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LOGOS Alex Selenitsch, one of the longest-serving members of the Faculty of Architecture at the University, has a significant design and artist background and is recognized as one of the country’s most important concrete poets.

We have asked Alex to consider our project in all its challenges and opportunities, and devise a drawing that would be able to be utilized in a number of contexts, from t-shirt and poster design, to building hoarding/screening to unique drawing state/print format for exhibition purposes.

The complex and vital work Alex has produced for us can be used in a multitude of ways; vertically, in a repeat design, singularly and horizontally. It’s made up of the symbols + and – ( plus and minus) referencing ambiguity, pros and cons, future histories, mathematical logic and rationality. It’s a complex and beguiling work.

We see this work functioning as a type of logo, connecting the various projects, a constant and agile reminder of links between works, sites and other manifestations of the University’s engagement with this creative project. It’s minimal yet multi-faceted use of the image of the tree and its root system, and the ability of this work to be applied to a number of contexts is an exciting beginning point, and one we envisage extending and expanding into the other projects over time.

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TIME The development of this key project records our primary desire to link the action of planting trees to a vision of the future. Time proposes an exhibition that exists in the future but not in the present.

Our project pairs artists with academics and presents each pairing with either timber or paper produced from the trees removed in 2017. The commission brief is simply to produce a body of work for an audience 139 years in the future, in the year 2156.

The future date mirrors the implementation of the double Elm tree planting design, established along the length of Royal Parade in 1878. 139 years forward = 2156.

The artists work would not be revealed in the present, it will be sealed unseen, inviting the participants to consider the challenges and freedoms presented by the temporal boundaries of the concept.

Working closely with the Potter Museum of Art, and students, the work would be prepared through conservation techniques to last the journey into the future. The form taken by the storage of the sealed work, would be considered an artwork in the present day and we envisage an exhibition of the sealed containers to announce the partnerships and launch the work into the future.

In this form, the sealed artworks could be brought out of storage and loaned for exhibition, but the containers will remain sealed and the content would not be revealed, freeing the artists to speak their mind only to the future.

Not only will this project result in a series of outstanding work and an important exhibition concept for the Potter, it will foster conversation and collegiality between great thinkers and makers of our country at this present time. We will invite some of the nation’s most important artists to partner with some of the University’s key academic staff, experts in genetic research, philosophy, architecture, theatre and more to consider form and language for a future audience.

As we know, some of the University’s most illustrious alumni come from the Faculty of VCA/MCM. The history of staff and students from this faculty make up a large majority of the country’s most celebrated artists, many of whom work internationally. We have focused our efforts in linking these alumni with the University’s centers of specialist knowledge and academic staff. Eg: Artists Academics David Noonan Professor Alan Pert, architecture and art Ricky Swallow Dr Karen Jones: Philosophy, emotions and rationality Nick Selenitsch Alex Selenitsch/Architecture/concrete poetry Sally Smart Professor Rachel Fenton/Performance/feminist histories Patricia Piccinini Loane Skene/Law/genetics and medical ethics John Meade Dr Derham Groves/Architecture/popular culture This project has many benefits to the University community. The date for exhibition set in the future creates a compelling and unique set of problems that could produce important research and teaching opportunities for both staff and students, including the Conservation Department.

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THE WAITING ROOM One of the anchors of the project, The Waiting Room, would take the form of a wood lined permanent installation using salvaged timbers assessed as appropriate for walls, flooring and seating.

The project offsets the loss of trees by creating a future narrative for the Parkville campus, a narrative that refers to what is now site history and what is now; present.

The idea formed after an early discussion with Maggie Barron from MMRA - her trying to recall the location of a ‘record room’ embedded in the old Union building on the Parkville campus. A space she had used as a student to ‘kill time’. We began to envisage an artwork existing as a waiting room nestled in the heart of the underground station, adopted by the University community.

Since then we’ve looked at the work existing elsewhere on the University campus, the South Lawn Car Park was identified in meetings as potential site for the work.

We envisage working with architecture students to research and realise an interior design referencing the functional code and aesthetics of a waiting room. A space, between time, sited to connect with a number of possible timetables, a train, a lecture, a meeting, an event…

We anticipate the space attracting alternative possibilities of function and useage.

Informed by many of the University’s sub-cultural gatherings; from vital feminist collectives and Vietnam protest campaigns of the 1970s, to more experiential gatherings, discussion groups. Students of the University have always gathered together to collectively work out strategies to change and shape their futures.

The project could be attached to the Margaret Lawrence gallery programme, extending the curatorial range of the gallery, connecting the VCA community to the Parkville campus.

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COMMISSIONS These commissions will use the story of the trees to create a series of publicly sited cultural objects and interventions for the University community and the general public to experience, contemplate and engage with.

As curators of this project, we understand that the wood from the trees will hold enormous conceptual and material value, and will connect directly with the University of Melbourne’s esteemed research ability and potential, including both staff and students.

On this site, laden with complex, experimental and vital current research, we hope to uncover and create a culturally rich and significant art project that will enhance the life of the University community and beyond for years to come.

Commission: Local A key Australian contemporary artist, selected through an invitational competitive process, will be asked to consider the site of the historical University gate that commemorates the University becoming a public institution and the site of the corner of Grattan Street and Royal Parade (where the entrance to the station will eventually be situated and from where many trees will be removed). “This section of fence reinstated in 1982, was part of the original removed in 1938 under an agreement with the Melbourne City Council whereby the University opened its grounds to the public. �

We, with Simon Maidment, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, NGV and two key University staff will form the selection committee for this exciting opportunity. Artists will be considered for this project, as mentioned, will have research-based practices and a commitment and track record to embrace the material and conceptual challenges this project demands. While there are many artists who may be suitable for this project, we have identified Fiona Foley, Nicholas Mangan, Susan Jacobs, Brook Andrew, Cameron Robbins, Kathy Temin and Emily Floyd as all having experience and research interests in site specific projects, cultural contexts and public installation art projects.

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Commission: International In the course of this research, we have uncovered a number of key artists who have created important and innovative artworks around the subjects of nature and culture, ecological issues and landscape. In the spirit of highest and best use of the removed trees, we would like to commission a major international artist to create a work in response to the removal of the trees, utilizing the wood and/or site details in the creative production of their project. The artist may connect with aspects of the research we have undertaken, or they may wish to conduct their own research into this field. For the sake of continuity and planning, we would engage the same panel outlined for the local commission.

This would provide a major cultural research opportunity for University, and we envisage this artist would conduct a number of site visits and engage with the arts community, including staff and students of the university during this time. The following artists are of the caliber we would attract: Martin Boyce, Scotland Nathan Coley, Scotland Celeste Boursier-Mougenot, France Katie Paterson, England Sarah Sze, US Tacita Dean, Berlin All of these artists have previously completed major and highly successful art projects in Melbourne, and have creative and professional relationships established here.

Image left: Brook Andrew, The Island Series, 2008 Image above: Tacita Dean, ‘Majesty’ 2006

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Researched examples - best practice 1) The Paulownia Tree ( 1924 – 2016 ) Villa Le Lac ECAL / Jaime Hayon Villa ‘Le Lac’ located on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, is one of the first examples of modern architecture designed by Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. The house was completed in 1924 and became the home for Le Corbusier’s parents.

When ECAL / university of art and design in Lausanne were notified that the historical Paulownia Tree, planted in 1924 on the garden terrace of villa, was to be removed due to an incurable illness, ECAL asked artist and designer Jaime Hayon to honor the site and the architecture, by creating a new work from useable timber salvaged from the tree.

‘I was honored to be given the task to create new objects from the Villa ‘Le Lac’ tree to, in turn, honour the great Le Corbusier,’ explains Jaime Hayon. ‘I thought about who would most miss the beautiful Paulownia standing on the banks of Lake Geneva. I thought about birds singing amidst the sound of leaves in the wind, a little home for those birds, and kids laughing joyously while swinging from the branches. I let this spirit guide me in creating the three objects which speak to the poetic nature of the tree, evoking new life.’

So the Paulownia Tree and Le Corbusier’s memory continues to live in three decorative objects which will be produced from all the healthy parts of the tree, down to the very last piece of wood.

The pieces reference the tree that has been cut down, and have a specific functional use, a bird house, and a ledge designed to hold household items.

An offspring from the Paulownia Tree has been replanted at the ‘Bourse aux Arbres’ in the suburbs of Lausanne where it is now more than 1m high.

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2) Future Library Katie Patterson 2014 - 2114 Through the development of our proposed project Time, we came across this remarkable project by Scottish artist Katie Patterson and we acknowledge an element of creative homage to her literary concept, Future Library.

A forest has been planted in Norway, which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in one hundred years time. Between now and then, one writer every year will contribute a text, with the writings held in trust until 2114, when the published texts will become a library in a specially designed room in the New Public Deichmanske Library, Oslo.

Tending the forest and ensuring its preservation for the 100-year duration of the artwork finds a conceptual counterpoint in the invitation extended to each writer: to conceive and produce a work in the hopes of finding a receptive reader in an unknown future.

The author, poet, essayist and literary critic Margaret Atwood was the first writer to contribute to the project.

www.futurelibrary.no

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3) 7000 Oaks Jospeh Beuys 1982 – on going In 1982, for documenta 7, Beuys proposed a plan to plant 7000 oaks throughout the city of Kassel, each paired with a basalt stone.

The project, seen locally as a gesture towards green urban renewal, took five years to complete and has spread to other cities around the world.

7000 Oaks functions not just literally, in practical environmental terms, but symbolically, as an everyday inspirational image. It embodied, metonymically, Beuys’s utopian and poetic metaphysic of a social sculpture designed to effect a revolution in human consciousness.

By means of its permanence and longevity it also sought to render “the world a big forest, making towns and environments forest-like. For Beuys intended the project as realized in Kassel to be only the first stage in an ongoing scheme of tree planting to be extended throughout the world.

Subsequently, single trees with stones have been placed at strategic sites, including the Fifth Biennale of Sydney, Australia.

https://diaart.org/media/_file/brochures/beuys-joseph-7000-oaks-new.pdf

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4) Re-configuration of a tree Thomas Vailly 2015 Reconfiguration of a tree is a product design research project, focused on biobased material isolated from the Pinus Pinaster, a resinous tree that can be harvested for it’s resin or pitch. ‘‘Thomas Vaillly took a natural element, the Pinus Pinaster tree, ripped it apart and rearranged its elements into man made materials with as few modifications as possible.

These natural materials are building blocks - biopolymers, sticky tar, pitch, flexible fibers or stiff binders. When combined they turn into a man made material. The project has gone back to more basic uses of these natural building blocks to develop new, potentially sustainable materials.”

The result is an abstraction of a tree, black matter joining, coating and contrasting with the raw pine timber. The ingredients are low grade, renewable, biodegradable, materials such as cellulose, lignin, rosin,... In order to reveal the full potential of the tree, the isolated materials were given to artists and designers who , through the exploration of media, with created a series of custom prototypes.

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Kate Daw and Stewart Russell Have been collaborating for the past decade on large scale, public visual art projects.

They share a strong interest in bringing other people’s memories, opinions and experiences into the artwork.

They are particularly interested in locating and resurrecting forgotten histories, and working with narrative, politics and site in their practice, as well as engaging the skills, stories and experiences of others directly as both material form and subject in their artwork.

They have completed a major permanent sculpture that took the form of a cast bronze bell and 8m campanile tower (Civic Twilight End, 2010), been shortlisted twice for the Basil Sellers Art Prize (A Simple Act, 2008, Another World, 2016), were the recipients of the inaugural Artist Fellowship at the MCG (Two Homes 2010), their collaborative practice has been acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria and private collections. They deliver lectures about their work nationally and internationally.

Image left: Kate Daw and Stewart Russell, Civic Twilight End, 2010