Circle of Elders, Bendigo Gov Hub
Bendigo, VIC
Bendigo, VIC
Artist: Dja Yingila Art & Rebecca Phillips
Contractors: ICON
Product: ShapeShell™-RT
Surface Area: Garden Artwork
Application: Aboriginal Chair Sculpture
Responsibility: Design, Engineering & Manufacture of Feature Elements
A circle of 4 elders sit with wurrekang and dhelkup nyernila (talking and good deep listening) each contributing their skill mastery, totemic lore and kinship responsibilities to the conversation of tribal governance and roles in season and ceremony of Country. The journey line from elder to Central mound (with lighting acting as fire ambience) as symbolising what they are sharing with the other elders, what comes from their murrup (spirit). The central mound design is a smaller-scale replica of the larger circle of 4 elders from bird’s eye view, shows 8 elders sitting around a fire – representing the intergenerational passing of knowledge and lore.
Each of these elders will have a symbolic design and story of their contribution to that conversation of the elders. There are two male and two female to show the equality of male and female leadership and mastery that is in balance and complimentary to gender roles that are dependent on the survival of the tribe and the health of Djandak (Country). With the men having the primary role of protecting the women and children – the ceremonial war shields on the U shape will be facing out of the circle. Women having the primary role of creation and food gathering, the tarnuk (bark dish/coolamon) will be facing in to symbolise the gathering of food to share amongst the tribe and the nurturing of babies.
Circle of Elders is an artwork by Dja Yingila Art and Rebecca Phillips, installed in a garden setting in Bendigo, Victoria. The design, the symbolism and the cultural knowledge the work carries belong to the artists and are described in their own words above. ShapeShift’s contribution was manufacture: producing the sculptural elements in ShapeShell™-RT to the artists’ design.
The elders are chairs as well as sculpture, which changes the engineering requirement. A sculpture has to hold its own weight and resist wind. Seating has to carry people, repeatedly, including people who sit down heavily, stand on it or lean back against an edge. Every surface within reach becomes a loaded surface, and the loading is not where a designer would choose to put it.
That is difficult in a sculptural form because the shapes are set by the artwork rather than by structural convenience. The strength has to be built into geometry that was drawn for other reasons, which is where a fibre reinforced laminate is useful: the reinforcement can be placed where the load path needs it without changing the outside of the form or adding visible thickness.
The work sits in the open with no supervision and no protection from weather. A thermoset composite has no embedded steel to corrode, and pigment moulded into the material rather than applied as a coating means the colour is not a maintenance item. Surfaces that people touch every day cannot depend on a paint film.
Low weight also matters for installation in a garden. Light elements can be placed without heavy plant tracking across a landscaped site, and the foundations each piece needs stay modest.
The central mound incorporates lighting. Designing for that from the outset is different from adding it later: services have to be routed inside the elements, penetrations have to be sealed against water, and fittings have to be accessible for replacement without dismantling the artwork. Moulded construction allows those provisions to be built into the piece rather than cut into it afterwards.
This project used ShapeShell-RT, our FRP composite system.
Browse all ShapeShift projects, or compare the panel materials in cladding panels compared.