Maree Clarke - Melbourne Metro Tunnel Linewide
T Projects developed the creative vision and implementation plan for the multi award winning Melbourne Metro Tunnel Creative Program, which includes temporary creative activations throughout the seven-year construction period and legacy art commission in each of the five new stations throughout central Melbourne. We developed and led the creative program from the bid stage in early 2017 through to the presentation and selection of preferred artists concept designs in 2020.
Images courtesy of Metro Tunnel
Celebrated Victorian First Nations artist, Maree Clarke, has created Tracks – a line-wide artwork that spans all 5 stations. Clarke’s artwork showcases native fauna found across the traditional lands and waters of the 5 Kulin Nation clans – Wadawurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung, and Bunurong / Boonwurrung. Maree’s artwork comprises large scale floor mosaics created from coloured granite. The granite was cut using a waterjet, with each piece finished and assembled by hand. There will be a total of 35 footprints featured across the 5 station platforms.
The footprints at each station have been chosen by the artist from native animals (living and extinct) found in the different natural habitats across Kulin Nation Country, which includes Greater Melbourne and parts of south-central Victoria.
Arden Station will feature footprints of forest-dwelling animals which may be or were once found on Wadawurrung Country, such as the quoll, the eastern pigmy possum and the koala. Anzac Station showcases footprints of animals found in coastal environments on Bunurong / Boonwurrung Country, including the fur seal and fairy penguin.
Client
Artist
Project Team
Design - Hassell, Weston Williamson + Partners, and RSHP
Construction - Lendlease Engineering, John Holland and Bouygues Construction Australia
Fabricator
Photography
Courtesy of Metro Tunnel
Maree Clarke
Maree Clarke is a pivotal figure in the reclamation of southeast Australian Aboriginal art practices, reviving elements of Aboriginal culture that were lost – or laying dormant – over the period of colonisation, as well as a leader in nurturing and promoting the diversity of contemporary southeast Aboriginal artists.
Maree’s continuing desire to affirm and reconnect with her cultural heritage has seen her revification of the traditional possum skin cloaks, together with the production of contemporary designs of kangaroo teeth necklaces, river reed necklaces and string headbands adorned with kangaroo teeth and echidna quills, in both traditional and contemporary materials such as glass and 3D printing.
Maree is known for her open and collaborative approach to cultural practice. She consistently works in intergenerational collaboration to revive dormant cultural knowledge – and uses technology to bring new audiences to contemporary southeast Aboriginal arts.
Maree Clarke has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, and in 2021 she was the subject of a major survey exhibition Maree Clarke – Ancestral Memories at the National Gallery of Victoria. Other recent exhibitions include Tarnanthi, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2021), The National, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney (2021), Reversible Destiny, Tokyo Photographic Museum, Tokyo Japan (2021) and the King Wood Mallesons Contemporary Art Prize, for which she was awarded the Victorian Artist award. In 2020 she was awarded the Linewide Commission for the Metro Tunnel project (current) and is the recipient of the 2020 Australia Council Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Fellowship.
