The terrifying clawed forearm of an evil subterranean creature thrusting skyward from the underworld?
Or an inflatable bunny as a metaphor for Australia’s colonisation?
Perhaps surprisingly, the image adjacent is actually a local sculptor’s take on the latter.
And, apparently, it’s a good one at that, too.
In fact, Mark Cuthbertson’s Gold Scout won this year year’s $20,000 10th annual Tesselaar Sculpture Prize, one of the discipline’s richest in Victoria.
The organisers explained that the artist had “a focus on large inflatable objects”.
Which would explain his abstract blow-up rabbit, obviously.
Anyway, Mark said Gold Scout was from a broader body of work drawing parallels between the place of rabbits in Australia’s colonisation, their environmental impact and “broader social issues”.
Yes, Mark, like weird nightmare bunnies with giant claws for ears.
Rabbits might be winning prizes but in Geelong it seems like a case of when the cats’ are away the mice will set themselves up with junkets.
Well, that badly paraphrased scenario could emerge as the case at City Hall, according to a buried news report this week.
Apparently officers have, in the absence of elected councillors, applied for Geelong to join an international network of like-minded cities.
UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network already has 116 members, with the next additions announced next month in – where else – Paris.
Ooh, sounds exclusive! Almost like Barwon Heads Golf Club!
But why should Geelong join this global cocktail party?
Well, silly, the network is for cities “working to prioritise creative and cultural industries”.
And just remember, as readers were reminded, that Geelong “emphatically voted” recently for a Clever and Creative City vision.
So, of course, the “very fitting first step” toward the 30-year vision is joining the UNESCO network for creative cities!
How logical! How clever (and creative)!
But what’s a network without networking?
Sounds like the next council might have some wings to clip!
Mind you, just consider the many rich rewards Geelong reaped from the expensive and extensive international travel of previous administrations.
Let’s count them on no hands.
Who could forget the early-’90s junket that returned with Chinese water meters – that didn’t work in Australia, or even have anything to do with council services?
Money well spent!
Then there were all those European and US missions nearly a decade later for a Guggenheim.
A what? Never mind – good times!
And what of all the travel in the intervening years? Err, thanks for the frequent flyers!
“This is the ratepayers’ control tower to City Hall flight 999: stick to roads, rubbish and rates, thanks”.
Meanwhile, council staffers might be planning high-flying futures but the civic affairs of at least one prominent figure were grounded this week.
And the evidence came not one but twice.
The definitive proof that celebrity ex-mayor Darryn Lyons had decided against attempting a return to council was when he failed to make the cut off for nominations on Tuesday afternoon.
But the metaphorical sign came around the same time when he unhappily watched on TV as his wistfully-named horse, Geelong Mayor, finish last in the second at Ararat.
Cheer up, Daz, and think of it this way: yes, you were both out of the running but at least one was still Mayor!
