SOMEBODY ORDER CRAB?
FISHOS who think they’ve had a monster catch might want to think again. Nothing could compare to the remarkable crab hauled along a Gold Coast beach yesterday. The giant crustacean settled on a rock at Currumbin Alley in preparation for the upcoming Swell Festival.
CRANES, trucks and artists rolled into Currumbin yesterday to begin transforming the foreshore into an outdoor gallery for this year’s 15th annual Swell Sculpture Festival.
From a pair of giant hands gesturing from the top of Elephant Rock to an oversized time bomb jutting out of the sand, the 50 artworks selected for this year’s exhibition all come with their own installation challenges.
More than 275,000 people are expected to visit Swell’s 1km long outdoor gallery along Currumbin Beach from Friday to September 17.
Swell co-director and curator Ruth Della said the artists and the Swell installation crew used a crane, a Manitou and a tractor to move some of the heavier works into place.
“We have a couple of large-scale works this year,” she said. They include Clayton Thompson’s Safe – a comment on the journey and destination for many domestic violence victims that symbolises a safe house and highlights the moment an individual begins the journey from victim to survivor.
“It’s a significant installation. It’s made of pool noodles – around 6000 of them,” Ms Della said.
“Jacqueline Damon has a beautiful lighthouse (titled Intuitions) that once again, has a lovely scale to it.”
This year’s Swell will have a bigger program of free weekend gigs on Currumbin foreshore for Swell Sounds, workshops, the Swell Smalls Gallery, masterclasses, photography events, short films and pop-up artist talks.
The winners of this year’s major prizes will be announced at the festival’s official opening event at Dust Temple on Thursday night, with the winners of the public-voted categories to be announced via the Swell website on September 24.