Can Public Artwork Assist in Remembering, Memorializing and Honoring Events, Heroes and Icons?

The presentation will use the Q150 Mosaic Project completed in 2009 as a case study to highlight how remote and often culturally diverse communities can come together to celebrate difference and at the same time unite using the public art project as the catalyst. It will discuss the process used to gather information and how local councils were encouraged to seek out the creative thinkers within their communities, and how they in turn gathered together like-minded creative artists to collaboratively respond to place past and future. The project was completed over a period of about twelve months and involved 73 communities from 73 shires from all over the state of Queensland Australia. The project was intended to encourage communities to look into their past, thoughtfully analyze where they had come from and question their values. From this body of reference they were able to isolate events heroes and icons and make value judgments about their future. Their research manifest as a collection of over 150 panels (individual artworks) covering an area of about 45 square meters.