Australian correspondence is the weekly newsletter from our Australian bureau. Sign up Get it via email. This week’s issue is written by Northern Territory journalist Julia Bergin.
A car swerves from left to right across three lanes on the highway.
“You have 100 millimeters to your left. Stay steady, stay straight,” the driver said into the radio.
He was followed by two vehicles with road signs on their roofs warning of “oversized cargo ahead.” Next came the police escort of two powerful cars, and finally the centerpiece of the convoy: a huge truck gliding alongside a work of art weighing approximately 14 tons.
The massive metal sculpture, worth nearly $10 million, is covered with membrane and mesh and held in place with a heavy-duty frame. Its support convoy traveled less than a mile on the road earlier this week. To reach its destination, the entire installation took five and a half days to travel from Brisbane to the nation’s capital, Canberra. At the National Gallery of Australia, the work titled “Ouroboros” by Australian artist Lindy Lee is expected to be preserved for 500 years.
Maybe, given time and space, it’s a short drive for a longer stay. Maybe to some, this isn’t that special: All over the world, art is packaged, packed, and stacked in various modes of transportation to get from point A to point B. And the unique challenges it brings are experiences few arts promoters elsewhere will feel familiar with.
National Gallery of Australia director Nick Mitzevich said it was not uncommon for art to travel around Australia by ship rather than being transported by truck. That’s because bumps, dust, heat, mountains, and curvy roads can all cause damage.
“It wasn’t necessarily the shortest route we pursued, but the one with the least impact on the artwork,” Mr. Mitschwicz said, explaining why Ms. Li used highly polished stainless steel to represent a giant eating snake. The tail is the “scenic trail”.
The direct drive from Brisbane to Canberra is about 735 miles, but the convoy transporting the sculpture traveled about 1,240 miles. It passes through three separate jurisdictions – Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory – through dense city streets at night and long, open country roads during the day.
Delays were caused by heavy fog, unexpected roadworks, oncoming traffic defying police blockades and mobile road maintenance including removing signs and felling trees. Depending on the hazard and situation, the vehicle can travel at speeds as low as 3 miles per hour and as high as 50 miles per hour.
“Ouroboros” creator Ms. Li, who accompanied the convoy throughout the journey, said she was in awe of the driver’s ability to navigate dangerous terrain and extremely tight spaces.
“I scraped my car reversing out of the Westfield car park!” she said, referring to one of Australia’s major shopping centres. “They were driving this huge vehicle and they were an inch away from the wall.”
She was amazed by the skill and scale of the record-breaking operation – who knew it would be the largest object to pass through Canberra’s city centre?
Jon Kelly, head of transport from Heavy Hauling Assets, said with typical Australian understatement that the move itself was not difficult.
During his 25 years in the business, Mr. Kelly and his team have transported items including offshore oil drilling equipment, tunnel boring machines and cranes that are 74 yards high and 38 yards wide. Mr Kelly said that while moving the artwork was a first for him, the same technical rules applied.
“From an enforcement perspective, it’s a solid 2 out of 10. But from a clerical perspective, it’s 11.75 out of 10,” he said with a smile, listing approvals, permissions and approvals over the past two years. , feasibility study and results.
“You’re dealing with Canberra, you’re dealing with the National Gallery, you’re dealing with people and consortia who are used to moving things one-tenth the size,” he added. “They come from all different walks of life than my transportation world, and they’re a very nervous bunch.”
Although transportation is not new to the art world, few artists have much to do with it. Typically, the work is either completed and shipped to where it needs to go, or it is assembled on site by the artist.
But for Ms. Lee and Mr. Kelly, a week traveling with Ouroboros quickly bridged their differences and dispelled any clichéd assumptions they had about each other’s worlds.
“Honestly, I thought Lindy would come in for the first few hours and then fade away and meet us in Canberra, but she was adamant throughout the whole trip,” Mr Kelly said. “She never left my operator or truck’s side during the entire trip.”
“I think,” he added, “she’s actually a converted full-size truck driver now.”
Commuting is also a cultural experience for the wider truck driver community, who encountered the sculpture and its high-security entourage when it was parked at a heavy vehicle rest area in a major country town.
Ms. Li said that many people were stunned, scratching their heads, and questioning what this was. But for her, explaining to onlookers that her art isn’t intergalactic only adds to the work’s purpose.
“My job is to make connections,” Ms. Li said.
“I’ve been changed, really, because of how amazing they are.”
That’s this week’s story.
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