Public Art
Cottesloe, Australia

2021

there is a concrete wall in the middle of a sandy area .

In 2020, we won the Inaugural Sculpture by the Sea Award for our submission titled ‘Interacting Fences.’ The piece was designed to be a response to the questions and needs that arose from the ‘social distancing’ practices of the COVID-19 pandemic.

a line drawing of people sitting on a curved wall .

We created an installation that used the acoustic phenomenon known as the ‘whispering wall effect.’ Users sit at either end of the fence, 12 meters apart, but audibly close, as the arc bounces sound from one end of the surface to the other.

a close up of a white wall with a blue sky in the background .

The work appears as a solution to socially distant communication, but it also quietly explores the question of how we maintain human connection in a culture that seems increasingly divided, both socially and
politically.

Hence the use of an iconic form of Western Australian fencing: corrugated fiber cement. Made of asbestos until the late ’80s, this fencing has been used prolifically throughout the state to divide up (stolen) land and demarcate it as owned and private, rather than shared and public. The piece pulls and stretches this rigid form into an arc that faces in on itself to create the acoustic effect.

a woman and a child are sitting on a bench on the beach .

The work proposes that if we are willing to rethink the parts of our society that were previously considered standard, perhaps even the things that have kept us apart could bring us closer together.