I call on the citizens of Gympie region to save our heritage-listed Gympie and Widgee District Fallen Soldier’s Memorial Park from 21st-century ‘scope creep’ of project upgrades proposed by Gympie RSL Sub-branch and endorsed by Gympie Regional Councillors without community consultation and transparency of rate payers’ contribution to support the combined project upgrades.
The Gympie Memorial Park design by Henry Moore is the only intact landscape (inclusive of gardens and pathways) in existence in the whole of Queensland, which is why it is endorsed with heritage status.
The realignment of the proposed heritage path … with works commencing by December would require the relocation of a light pole, picnic table seating and possibly the recently relocated Butchulla Peace Pole from the bandstand area to its current location.
The existing and functional Memorial Flame structure dedicated on 24 April 2001 will not be relocated to Memorial Park.
It will be superseded with the introduction of new materials of stainless steel and bronze in a new space at the rear of the park between the playground and fernery structure.
The dedicated current structure surrounding the Memorial Flame will be demolished.
The Memorial Flame is significant and a focal point to Anzac Day and Remembrance Day commemorations, but the historical focal point of the Gympie and Widgee District Fallen Soldier’s Memorial Park is the heritage-listed Bandstand where commemorative services have been held since the dedication and official opening of Memorial Park on the 20 April 1921 and the Council of Gympie City proclaimed as Trustee on 24 December 1921.
Memorials and monuments have never been under Council’s Public Art Policy.
Memorial Park is not a public art space but a sacred place of expression of national grief to honour local people who had served and died during the Great War and Boer War.
British policy at the time of the Great War decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell, and war memorials in a variety of forms became as sacred as grave sites for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries overseas.
The four 21st Century sculptured stainless-steel pillars created by a Brisbane artist that will be placed at the Reef Street end of Memorial Lane crossing and the art deco machine depiction designed for the Memorial Flame to be placed in the rear of Memorial Park, requiring a Jacaranda tree to be relocated and the realignment of the original fluid pathway design of Henry Moore’s is not in keeping with the surrounding structures or buildings or heritage design or in keeping with the Conservation Plan for Memorial Park that was adopted by Council on the 24 October 2018.
The focal point of Memorial Park has been the Bandstand since the early 20th century.
I don’t see how the new metal-style public art installation of a Memorial Flame (positioned in the rear of the park without shade within the same vicinity of the children’s playground and Fernery House that will be removed by Council according to their ordinary meeting report during this upgrade) will better facilitate memorial events such as Anzac Day and Remembrance Day for the Gympie community.
Four proposed sculptured stainless-steel pillars, created by a Brisbane artist that will be placed at the Reef Street end of Memorial Lane crossing also endorsed by Councillors, undermine the Public Art Policy, driver and pedestrian safety.
We have prominent metalwork and timber sculpture creatives in this region!
The Gympie and Widgee District Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Park is already a solemn and reflective space and has been a welcoming space for residents and visitors since the opening of the Memorial Park dedicated to the fallen since its inception.
I do not agree with all Councillors endorsing and acknowledging departures in the RSL’s proposal from the Conservation Management Plan for Memorial Park to have Council works of roads and path maintenance of Memorial Lane and Reef Street with RSL grant-funded monies from various governments to integrate silently the installation of inappropriate metal art sculptures around and in the heritage-listed sacred park lands to the fallen.
– Tanya Easterby
Gympie
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