Presented by Open House Melbourne, this onsite walk and talk with Dr Raafat Ishak and Fiona Hall, was hosted by Dr David Sequeira, to celebrate their permanent artworks at the new Anzac Station.
Printed onto the glass wall panels in the Albert Road entrance, Ishak’s Future Wall Painting acknowledges the architectural and cultural landmarks of the St Kilda Road precinct through abstract forms and geometric drawings, referencing Australian pre-contact, colonial, and military histories as well as architectural references to monuments and buildings associated with the St Kilda Road ceremonial boulevard.
Hall’s Anzac Station artwork recognises military service through the story of two Victorian-bred carrier pigeons, awarded the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross. Bronze sculptures of the pigeons perch on either side of the station’s entrance from the Shrine of Remembrance Reserve. The artwork also includes images of plant species with links to Australia’s military history including Lone Pine, Gallipoli Oak, Gallipoli Rose, Flanders Poppy, Lombardy Poplar and Rosemary, etched on glass wall panels on either side of the pigeons. These plant species grow where Australians fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front during the First World War.
