South Perth sculptures named best metropolitan art in Australia

Mindeerup at South Perth foreshore is the official home of Australia's best street art after winning the Gold Award for Best Metropolitan Art at the 2020 Australian Street Art Awards. Winners were announced at a ceremony on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast on Tuesday 

Four artworks collectively won the award:

• Karl Kep Ngoornd-iny which means Fire and Water Dreaming, a collaborative piece by Whadjuk Noongar artist Yondee Shane Hansen and Art+ (Art Coordination) that uses light and sound technologies to tell a timeless story of the Noongar seasons and the life cycles of Country that the traditional owners observed.
• Yedi Waangki-ny, meaning Songlines, is a series of eight sculptural reliefs with patterns that reference emu feathers, rock formations, water holes, rain clouds and songlines which was also designed by Yondee Shane Hansen and Art+ (Art Coordination).
• Mikaela Castledine’s Mends Street Mob are ten meerkats that celebrate some of the most loved residents of nearby Perth Zoo and can be found in two gangs – one in Mindeerup central and another along Mends Street.
• Promenading Emus are a family of two adult birds and a chick paused in mid-meander that were created by Russell Sheridan.

Public art is an important part of Mindeerup piazza and the City's Connect South project, focused on improving public amenity via place activation, wayfinding, access to transport and greater economic opportunity. A traditional Noongar name meaning ‘place of the shore’, the name Mindeerup acknowledges the significance of this area in Noongar culture and heritage.

The four award winning sculptures have helped transform Mindeerup into the urban heart of South Perth and an exciting tourism destination. 

The judges were particularly impressed by how public art has been used at Mindeerup to place Aboriginal culture in a prominent position at the very heart of this key new tourism precinct.

Equally impressive is the innovation inherent in "Karl Kep Ngoornd-iny", which provides a free art attraction 17 times weekly with times scheduled to suit young families and others automated to start later when visitors are enjoying the precinct’s restaurants and bars.

“We love that this projection art has been designed to encourage kids young and old to immerse themselves in the nightly experience by playing with the fish, frogs, goannas and kangaroos as they move around the site,” the judges commented.

“The City of South Perth has used the new Mindeerup installations to appeal to visitors in a way that will encourage them to eat, play and stay in the area, and that’s the name of the game in tourism,” the judges said.

Arts tourists from within Australia are high value visitors – they stay 42.8% longer and spend 55.9% more when travelling than domestic tourists overall, according to the Australia Council for the Arts’ Domestic Art Tourism: Connecting the Country 2020 Report.

Awards Director, Liz Rivers, added “Outdoor art has now come into its own with the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirming there is less risk of coronavirus infection in open outdoor settings. That makes trips to see outdoor murals, sculptures and mega pieces like silo art the perfect holiday thrill,” Ms Rivers said.