Creating placemaking art for Maleny IGA

©2014 - Design for Flow in front of one of the panels

As can be seen from the periodic postings on this blog, over the last 5-6 years Art4place has been involved in a number of community and placemaking art projects. However, the IGA Project (including Flow - Obi Obi Creek over the fresh produce area; the industrial framework over the bakery; the layered Mountains over the checkout area; and the story boards near Flow and under the covered Waterfall Walkway) was one of our biggest projects and took up quite a bit of time in 2014-15.

Art4place was approached by Michael Lake of the F3 Design and Architecture to put forward a proposal for art features in the Maleny IGA as part of the redevelopment of the store. Over several months four Art4place artists (Fiona Dempster, Edith-Ann Murray, Noela Mills and Barry Smith) workshopped ideas, designs, colours, sizes, drawings and materials for the works with Michael and Sam and Rob Outridge (store owners). The four elements that made up the IGA Project came from this artistic, architecture and engineering process.

The artworks needed to be light so the frames were aluminium box and the surface panels were composite aluminium sheeting. Colours in the main were to be shades of silver and grey to tone with the store paint and tile palet.

Four huge 5mX3m panels for the Flow installation were fabricated by Freeform Sheet Metal to Michael Edith-Ann and Barry's drawings; and delivered to a farm shed outside Maleny for Noela and Edith-Ann to add some finer design elements to the panels.

©2014 Art4place - Panels delivered to the farm shed

©2014 Art4place - Obi Bi Creek, Lomandra and Lomandra seed details on the panels

©2014 Art4place - Panels hung for working in the shed

©2014 Art4place - Light through the Lomandra cut outs on a panel

©2014 Art4place - Detail of the Lomandra seeds

©2014 Art4place - Panel ready for work

©2014 Art4place - Noela up the ladder etching away

©2014 Art4place - Panel - layers of metal and seeds with a darker contrast

The panels were transported to the IGA on a boat trailer for installation once the detailed Lomandra Longafolia seed images were completed.

Installing the 4 huge Flow panels were done at night after the store closed  - often working around other workers and stacks of foodstuff. It was a challenge to get the panels through the front door (with only 100mm to spare); but an even greater challenge to lever the pieces into place; to have them evenly spaced; and ensure they were all on the same plane. We were lucky to have a team of young installers who were committed to accuracy; and for the work to be coordinated by Edith-Ann.

©2014 Art4place - Panels - going up - important to get the anchor points right. Panels suspended on 10mm threaded rod - all double and triple bolted and through trusses and bridging boards in the ceiling.

©2014 Art4place - Panels - going up - important to get the anchor points right.

©2014 Art4place - Panels - going up - getting ready to winch a panel into place

©2014 Art4place - Panels - going up - winching in progress

©2014 Art4place - All Flow's panels securely in place

©2014 Art4place - The Obi Obi Flows over the produce area - the creek area in the centre section on each panel is lit from the sides by LED strip lights

©2014 Art4place - Bakery panels going up - industrial theme - two 4mX3m panels suspended and bolted accurately together

©2014 Art4place - Bakery panels secured 

©2014 Art4place - Looking towards the bakery panel from Flow end.

The layered Mountains were cut to shape by Miles Plastics according to Noela's scale drawings; and installed by the same dedicated team.

©2014 Art4place - The team installing Mountains - background painted and first aluminium composite layer going up

©2014 Art4place - First layer of Mountains up

©2014 Art4place - Second layer of Mountains - up and spaced to create 3D look.

©2014 Art4place - Tricky return being layered

©2014 Art4place - Layers of Mountains looking good

©2014 Art4place - Mountains - finished over the checkout.

In consultation with Rob and Sam, Fiona developed the story for Flow and for the Waterfall Walkway. Her original calligraphic work was vectorised and handed over to Miles Plastics to be etched into exterior engraving laminate.

©2014 Art4place - Fiona's Flow story board calligraphy etched into engraving laminate

©2014 Art4place - Fiona's Waterfall Walkway story board calligraphy etched into engraving laminate

©2014 Art4place - Sunlight through the Waterfall Walkway Lomandra cutouts

The artworks have been in place since before Christmas 2014. They are still creating much interest and much feedback to Rob and Sam.

Art4place would like to thank Rob and Sam Outridge for trusting Art4place with this project (and the earlier Waterfall Walkway project); and congratulate them for having the vision to include placemaking artworks into their business setting.

We also thank architect Michael Lake for seeing artworks as both an aesthetic and functional.