WILLIAM McCORMACK PLACE CAIRNS
Thematically exploring the cyclic nature of the weather patterns of Cairns, the new government building forecourt is an integrated artwork and landscape scheme. What would otherwise be a long narrow space has instead been transformed into a series of outdoor rooms. The vista seeks to engage the viewer in a succession of dramatic events symbolically portrayed at various staging points throughout the area. Four walls act as the thresholds into each ‘wet’ or ‘dry’ space. Inserted into each are large granite sculptures. Grey granite is carved and polished liquiform. Red granite is sandblasted, hammered and generally exposed into a desiccated state. These are abstract depictions of the sort of physical outcomes found in extreme climate conditions. The waterfalls and flash floods of the wet season, the parched and cracked extremes of the dry.
