Rotary Club of Dingley Village Commemorative Art Project - Curated by Kevan Thomas

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The Rotary Club of Dingley in partnership with the Springvale Sub Branch of the RSL invited submissions for a public art commission as memorial to ex-service men and women who lost their lives in defense of Australia. The work would be sited within the Dingley Village community and would become a central point for community commemorative services and other community cultural and educational programs.The design proposal developed by SueAnne Ware incorporates sweeping pathway, mass planting of red poppies with a 'Floating Plane' memorial structure set into to the plantings. The site proposed is adjacent to the Dingley Library and Dingley Village Community Centre, amongst established Ghost Gum trees. The proposed memorial would become spectacularly activated by the blooming of the poppies en masse as symbol of remembrance of lives lost in combat. The research contribution of this work is embedded in the situated nature of local war memorials, the use of conventional memorial architecture and flora symbols, and educative landscapes. Far from a grandiose gesture of patriotic identity, this memorial proposed that school children planted a grove of honor, the memorial becomes immersed in a forest and is hidden, and that the field of poppies transforms a suburban civic landscape. It is laden with iconography and civic gravitas, yet it does not overtly celebrate war or morosely remember those who have perished. The proposal was shortlisted to two of twenty-five proposals. A panel assembled of stakeholders from The Rotary Club of Dingley Village, The Returned Services League, City of Kingston, Dingley Village Community Centre and Voice for the Arts and the Dingley Village community conducted assessment.