By Goya Dmytryshchak
A Newport art company has been awarded a $120,000 grant to create a light-box installation focusing on the West Gate Bridge as part of the Art & Industry Festival.
Donna Jackson’s Hubcap Productions will use the VicArts grant for the outside gallery, to be created by Bindi Cole Chocka, and three more exhibitions over the next two years.
The light-box installation will be launched in Paine Reserve to coincide with the festival’s opening in mid-November.
Jackson said light-boxes containing contemporary images of the West Gate Bridge would be put on the back of Vinnies and Seagulls hotel in Newport.
She said the project stemmed from a collaboration with indigenous musician James Henry (Jimmy Little’s grandson) who recorded sounds in and around West Gate Bridge and a film shot by Chocka driving across the bridge.
“It’s a bridge between indigenous/non-indigenous culture and our story of the bridge and the bridge collapse,” Jackson said.
Chocka said the West Gate Bridge encapsulated links between art and labour.
The Art & Industry Festival will be held in Hobsons Bay from November 16-25.
