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.