In this watery week, I went looking for wetlands in the place where they were once found, in the area now known as Docklands.
Reed Vessel sits in a pool surrounded by trees between the Harbour Esplanade and Navigation Drive in Docklands Park.
Docklands Park’s wetlands provide vast underground water storages, enabling up to 80% of Dockland Park’s irrigation demands to be met with treated storm-water.*
This artwork, commissioned by the Docklands Authority, responds to the place that once was. It is dense with meaning. Both in its details and as a whole, the work is beautiful.
Virginia King created this work and her artist statement is poetry too:
“Reed Vessel embraces themes of migration, the river and the sea.
The work references the history of the site, the once-abundant food source of the vast tidal wetland that existed here, stories of the river and marine archaeology.
The vessel becomes a container of memories, a symbol of distant horizons, spiritual journeys, life, hope and survival.
Texts sandblasted onto the louvered sides of the cradle are selected from works by Australian poets and writers, metaphors relating to the river and sea, memory, loss and the passage of time.
The cladding of Reed Vessel alludes not only to the rib and strake of timber and steel ships but also to tidal flow, woven baskets, riverboat and canoe. The skeletal structure can be references as leaf or seed pod, source of food and source of life.”
Fragments of text, getting harder to read over the years, are etched into the louvres over which water slides. Here are just a tantalising few:
“By the riverbank and around the lagoon
Tears leave no grooves in archaeological sites
Water wears all colours and owns none
His words are leaves from the paperbark”
Look at these beautiful details of the animals that once lived in these wetlands. Sadly, some of them have been souveniered.
Docklands Park has recently been refreshed. The surrounding vegetation has been tidied up, new trees planted and a long bench seat introduced which defines the space.
Cool on a hot day, and looking just right on a wet grey one, Reed Vessel is a wetland refuge.
Virginia King Reed Vessel,
Commissioned: Docklands Authority.
Docklands Park, Melbourne, Victoria. 2002-2004.
*Docklands Park by ARM Architecture