Dan Elborne – the pillar, peninsula university hospital
T Projects were appointed as the lead project curators for the Frankston Hospital Redevelopment, now known as Peninsula University Hospital.
We were delighted to join the Exemplar Health consortium, which includes Capella Capital, Lendlease, Honeywell and Compass, with the design team including Bates Smart, Conrad Gargett, WSP and Waterman AHW.
T Projects are very proud to present The Pillar, the first major public art commission by artist Dan Elborne, created for the Frankston Hospital Redevelopment now known as Peninsula University Hospital.
The Pillar was conceived as a civic marker within the hospital’s arrival landscape, the work functions as both a sculptural landmark and a place of gathering.
“The Pillar stands as a monument to foundational strength, communal care and support. The tiled ceramic surface of this work is produced entirely by hand in Naarm / Melbourne, where each piece has been nurtured and characterised by human touch at every stage of making. This makes each ceramic piece, as it is with the preciousness of every human life, meaningfully unique.”
Dan Elborne
The artwork is constructed from hundreds of individually handcrafted ceramic tiles. Many of the tiles feature a subtle texture created by handmade press moulds, directly transferring the bark surface of River Red Gum and Swamp Manna Gum trees, which grew in abundance for millennia here as part of the Carrum and Koo Wee Rup Wetlands. Other tiles feature the unique markings made by over 300 community workshop participants - patients, families, hospital staff, visitors and members of the local community.
The colour of the tiles references local Frankston clay which can be found in the excavated ground underneath the hospital. The glaze also contains calcined Frankston beach sand.
Grounded in site-responsive making, The Pillar draws on local ecologies, histories and materials to create a work that is deeply connected to people and place, inseparable from its context. Through form, materiality and process, the artwork reflects the hospital as a civic environment shaped by care, participation and lived experience, and respectfully acknowledges its location on Boonwurrung / Bunurong land.
Client
Victorian Health Building Authority
Artist
Project Team
Capella Capital, Lendlease, Honeywell, Bates Smart, Conrad Gargett, WSP and Waterman AHW
Images
Courtesy of the artist
Dan Elborne
Dr Dan Elborne is an independent Australian visual artist currently practicing on Kulin Nation lands at Schoolhouse Studios in Naarm/Melbourne. His primary working material is clay, which is utilized for large-scale, site specific installation based projects and sculpture. Across various modes of practice, Elborne builds work on intersecting foundations of memory, time, labour and materiality.
Each project and piece remain conscious of the historical, philosophical and technical potency of ceramics, as well as secondary materials including ash, gold, steel, sandstone, marble, granite and concrete. Through their use, Elborne references themes of preservation, permanence and the intricacies of remembering via memory and meaning-making. Ultimately and regardless of form, Elborne and his specialised team design, produce and install work that positions the viewer in a gentle space of discovery, interpretation, contemplation and reflection.
Elborne has exhibited extensively in Australia; including gallery, institution and museum shows across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania. Internationally, he has participated in a number of artist residencies and exhibitions in France, Denmark, Iceland and Japan, as well as presenting his work in London, Finland, Sweden, Copenhagen and Philadelphia. His work has also been published and is part of both public and private collections across the globe. Most recently, he delivered a major public art commission as part of the Frankston Hospital Redevelopment Project, creating the external entryway sculpture of the new Frankston Hospital and incorporating the work of 320 community members.
Between 2011 and 2014, Elborne completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts (majoring in visual art) with first class Honours through the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). Between 2016 and 2019, he completed a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) through UniSQ, which focussed on the contemporary role, relevance and responsibility of memorialisation; framed by the unique longevity and position of ceramic materials in connecting to place and speaking to immediate and universal human experience.
