United Nations Association of Australia Special Commendation: Best Specific Environmental Initiative Award Mount Alexander Shire Council’s Footprints Project B A C K G R O U N D The Project The Mount Alexander Shire Council has become a leading local government practitioner of sustainable environmental practice with its commitment to a 30% carbon emissions reduction by 2010 and a commitment to informing residents about personal energy use. Such an undertaking requires a comprehensive and sustained public education campaign that reaches audiences in a variety of ways. The Footprints Project is a unique inter-departmental collaboration that utilises public art to deliver environmental information to the community. The project involves the Shire’s Sustainable Development and Community Planning units commissioning a series of artworks aimed at encouraging people to consider their daily actions and impact on the environment through the concept of the ecological footprint. Why the Ecological Footprint?

The plethora of information about the impact of climate change and carbon emissions can be overwhelming and lead to a sense of the issue being too complex for the average person to change. As a consequence, many people become resistant to chance; typically, through failing to absorb behaviour change information available to them. For this reason, an alternative and innovative approach to community education was sought. The idea of utilising art as a means of communication gave rise to the Footprints project. By focusing this project on the concept of individual ecological footprints, people are able to recognise and take control over the impact their lifestyle is having on the environment. The Footprint Project’s emphasis on personal responsibility for energy use aligned itself with Castlemaine 500 - another project the Mount Alexander Shire Council is assisting in to encourage 500 households in the region to actively reduce energy usage and costs.

M E T H O D O L O G Y Preparation The Mount Alexander Shire called for submissions from artists across all genres asking them to explore the concept of the ‘ecological footprint.’ The committee of local artists and environmental workers formed to select the final art works included

• Philip Schier (Mount Alexander Shire Councillor and community environmentalist)

• Elizabeth Eager (arts practitioner, community environmentalist and former Councillor)

• John Anthony (Environment Officer, Mount Alexander Shire)

• Fiona McMahon (Manager, Sustainable Development, Mount Alexander Shire)

• Stewart Carter (Member, Mount Alexander Shire Arts Advisory Group and arts practitioner)

• Bronwyn Machin (Member, Mount Alexander Sustainability Group and community environmentalist)

• Mandy Smith (Mount Alexander Shire-Wide Arts Facilitator and arts practitioner).

Selection The environmental artworks commissioned by the selection committee were

1. Steve Proposch: “Fuel Flowers” – a sculptural installation of roadside guide-posts planted close and layered to simulate a field of futuristic, luminescent flowers. The work suggests a future where the search for a clean, alternative fuel has come to fruition.

2. Julie Millowick: “Botanical Footprints” – photograms and digital technology on banners to form a 2-D garden – The work refers to the botanical traces of the goldrush era where plants such as blackberries and hawthorne were imported to ‘civilise’ this new and strange environment. This work interprets these plants and their stories through photographic montages displayed in a “banner garden”.

3. Diane Thompson: with school students: “The Gaia Hypothesis” – a carved concrete sculpture and sandstone pavers - the stylized totemic form symbolizes the environmental protector. Each stone, a place to step with minimal impact, is stenciled with renewable energy symbols created by local st udents.

4. Ben Laycock working with community members “The Ecological Timeline Project” A four panel mural with each panel representing a topographic map of Mount Alexander Shire. Images on each of the panels interpret the changing ecology since pre-colonisation, with the final panel envisaging a sustainable future.

5. P. John Sanderson: “Sink or Swim” – a mixed media installation - the work explores the relationship between catastrophic sea-level rise and personal energy use via video images on a TV which is gradually submerged.

Getting the Message Out The Footprints Project and the 2007 Castlemaine State Festival.

The Footprints project artworks were installed in highly visible locations throughout the 2007 Castlemaine State Festival (CSF). The CSF is the premier event in the region, attracting over 35,000 people to and from the Shire. The potential audience for the Footprints installations was therefore huge. Interpretive text explaining the environmental message of the work, the council’s commitment to sustainable energy use and the concept of the ecological footprint, accompanied each piece. Most importantly a series of six public education “Footprints” workshops was run in conjunction with the artworks. These workshops had an arts focus while delivering an environmental message. All workshop participants were given

• an overview of the Footprints project and an update on the Mount Alexander Shire Council’s commitment to significant reductions in carbon emissions

• information about the ecological footprint concept and, in some cases, access to computers to calculate their footprint

• a magnet designed by the Mount Alexander Shire to encourage participants to calculate their environmental footprint at home

• an invitation to attend an information session on how to reduce personal energy use at home via the Castlemaine 500 project

Artist Julie Millowick explaining the solar image development process called cynotype

WORKSHOPS AND INSTALLATIONS

Botanical Footprints Artist Julie Millowick

Workshop content A Workshop in Cyanotype.

Using the alternative energy source of the sun to produce and develop images

Workshop Numbers 31 participants over 2 sessions Artwork Installed Tutes Historical Cottage as part of a combined CSF visual arts exhibition Audience Numbers Over 1000

Sink or Swim Artists: John Sanderson and Jim Coad Workshop Content Footprint Flix (filmmaking)

Basic filming and interviewing techniques using the global warming debate as the workshop focus

Workshop Numbers 8 young people filming and interviewing Approx 18 people interviewed Artwork Installed Videoland Castlemaine Audience Numbers Work installed in main street at festival.

Audience numbers would have been in the thousands

Ecological Timeline Project Artist Ben Laycock Workshop Content Environmental education via a treasure hunt. Young people answered environmental questions in order to get clues to locate hidden treasure Workshop Numbers 32 participants over 2 sessions Artwork Installed Opposite town library Audience Numbers Thousands of people would have viewed this installation

The Gaia Hypothesis Artist Diane Thompson Workshop Content Wild Whirligigs:

exploring the concept of kinetic energy through making whirligigs

Workshop Numbers 14 participants (maximum number allowed for this workshop) Artwork Installed BUDA Historical Home and Garden

as part of the Castlemaine State Festival Sculpture Exhibition

Audience Numbers Thousands of people viewed the

BUDA sculpture exhibition

Fuel Flowers Artist Steve Proposch (pictured installing) Artwork Installed Main Rd Chewton (road leading from Melbourne to Castlemaine) Audience Numbers Clearly visible to all vehicles and pedestrians entering and leaving

Castlemaine to / from Melbourne. Audience would have been in the thousands over the 10 days of the festival. No workshops accompanied this artwork.

FOOTPRINTS PROJECT OUTCOMES

• Innovative way of getting council’s environmental message across to the general public

• The Shire now has access to 5 public artworks that can be utilised at events and festival

• Artwork and message reached large numbers of people via the Castlemaine State Festival.

• Interviews from the Festival Flix workshops shown at the Castlemaine Fringe Film Festival

• Workshops well attended with participants receiving environmental messages and methods for reducing their individual eco-footprints

• Magnets and posters created to inspire individuals to find out their individual eco footprints. These resources will be used extensively throughout the shire at other environmental events

• Twelve people participated in a follow up Footprints Project evening forum on reducing energy usage in the home.

• The Footprints Project actively made links with Castlemaine 500 project

• Young people who participated in the film workshops will be asked by Castlemaine 500 project manager to assist in interviewing people for that project

• As a result of requests from workshop participants for similar workshops to take place in the shire, a series of environmental art workshops will be running from Continuing Education during the June school holidays

• Good will generated between arts community, council and general community.