Many of you know that last year I took part in the Urban Smart Projects signal box project in Hobart (my design is on TSB 9103 on the corner of Murray and Davey Sts if you happen to be passing by and would like to check in on foursquare). Late last year I decided to throw my hat into the ring again with a design for the box on the corner of Bathurst and Murray Streets outside what is now known as Highfield House. After quite a bit of research I decided that I wanted to focus on the building’s former life as a hotel because a lot of the locals I chatted to hadn’t realised it had been on the site prior to the current building.
I came up with a design I called Last Drinks.

At the start of the week I got word from the project that the Hobart City Council had rejected my design as they are concerned that it promotes the consumption of alcohol. Now I’ve got to say a couple of things right from the outset:

1. This is not my project and I respect the right for the organisers and the Council to veto a design based on any criteria that they choose.
2. This outcome came as no huge surprise to me – I knew that there was a risk of the design being rejected when I submitted it, but had hoped that it might get through regardless and wanted to give it a go.

I’m not angry about the decision, but I am disappointed, even though I knew there was a chance this might happen. Knowing that the alcohol might be a concern I deliberately tried to make the image fairly innocuous. Have a look at it – it’s just a friendly publican standing in front of a bar with some beers next to his loyal and slightly dopey dog. Ironically my original concept for the box was this one:

Ironic because at face value it depicts the face of a little girl, but my motivation was to portray a child that had been left outside the pub while her dad was inside drinking. I ditched this concept because I didn’t think it was positive enough for the project, but in some ways depending on how I’d written the justification for the design (and if I’d cheered her up a smidge) I might have had a better chance of getting it approved because it actually doesn’t look too controversial.

I’m also a bit confused by the idea that my design might have promoted the consumption of alcohol. Do they really think that or is it just risk management going a little bit overboard? I’ve looked at the image dozens of times over the last few days and I’m still not convinced that anyone might look at it on the street and feel compelled to go and have a beer. Madder still is that I can’t paint a scene that depicts a piece of Hobart history because it contains images of a pub and some beer, but this same council is more than happy to approve the display of various advertisements for beer companies on billboards around town. I could be wrong, but I think their intention may be to promote the consumption of alcohol. Yes, I know that if the council approves my design they might be deemed to be the promoters of the booze, but it seems silly that they’re happy for that to be the outcome as long as it’s not them that’s the promoter directly.

I think this episode also raises the question of truth in art. It reminds me a lot of criticism that I read of the TV show Mad Men because it regularly portrays characters drinking and smoking in a workplace. I’m very firmly in the camp that if it could have happened in real life in that era (which it probably would have) I want to see it included as an accurate depiction of what happened in that time. I also happen to think we’re coming at this from the wrong direction – is the problem what the art is depicting or is the problem that we’ve morphed into a society where many people don’t want to take personal responsibility for their actions, can’t make a choice without having their hands held by a nanny, or can’t see that they have just as much free will to make a good choice in life as a bad choice. If a TV show somehow makes a person decide to smoke a cigarette, I think the problem is less about the TV show and more about the sheep-like tendencies we are witnessing in society more and more.

But the crux of it is, if a pub existed on this site, why should we be so scared to depict that? Do we want a town that is honest and proud of its heritage and happy to acknowledge that a mature society recognises that it is the sum of all the good and the bad that has gone before? Strong enough to acknowledge past events without necessarily having to live by them? I certainly do.

One of the guidelines for the Hobart part of this project was that the current round of artworks come up with something other than the stock standard Tasmanian iconography that is riddled with Thylacines (hand up, I’m guilty of this as well). I read that request and saw it as an opportunity to offer up something different for people to look at that might make them stop and wonder what happened in this place. The Hobart City Council has expressed a desire to breathe some life into this city, most recently through the commissioning of the Gehl Report, but I’m not sure that the city will ever change if something as innocuous as my design is deemed to be too big a risk as a piece of public art.

The project organisers gave me the option to speak to the Council’s Cultural Heritage Officer so that I might learn about other aspects of the site’s history and focus on one of them instead in a new design. I considered that option, but even though I respect the Council’s right to select work however they see fit, I am choosing to defend my design by not submitting a replacement and have withdrawn from the project. This post isn’t intended to be a criticism of how the project is run or the outcomes they achieve. I think it’s fantastic that the signal boxes have added some colour and interest to the Hobart landscape. I just didn’t want to let it pass without expressing my disappointment. Having said all of that, I fully understand that if I want to participate in community art projects, organisers are under no obligation to let me produce my work just because I think there shouldn’t be an issue with it.

All part of my life-long learning. What do you think?