Adelaide Art Fence

This commission in 2008 was for an original artwork as a strong fence to act as a pedestrian barrier for the entrance to the Adelaide Showgrounds along Goodwood Road near the new exhibition hall.

I had worked with Michael Chapman (at his invitation) on a project in Newcastle called Back to the City in Newcastle early in 2008. Our contribution involved bringing 48 tonnes of aluminium slabs from the smelter at Kooragang Island to the parade ground in front of Customs House. (Documentation of this project has now been published in a solid hardback book Back to the City: Strategies for Informal Urban Interventions, editor Steffen Lehmann, published by Hatje Cantz.)
For the Adelaide Showground I wanted to use aluminium as a sculptural material, and imagined a new kind of fence picket made by casting.

Michael Chapman worked intensively on the computer modelling of the mould
and the ground plan layouts.

Making the mould took six weeks of work by Sankey Diecasting in Adelaide, and one thousand pickets each weighing three kilograms were cast at the factory.

Installation … process … final result.

Photographs by Adey Brecknock