A chance to make a statement

Some hope the new Shepparton Art Museum will make more than an artistic statement, but also provide a shining example of green building design.

The landmark SAM to be built on the shores of Victoria Park Lake has the potential to become a best practice showcase for sustainable buildings in the region, according to a local environment group.

Regional change: The Goulburn Valley Environment
Group hopes the new Shepparton Art Museum at
Victoria Park Lake can be a statement of change in the region.

The estimated two-year build for the $35 million, five-storey facility is set to start next year.

And Goulburn Valley Environment Group president John Pettigrew said some see the building, hoped to be an iconic, postcard entrance to the city from the south, as being ‘‘a statement of change in this region’’.

He said the building could be more than a scene-setting piece of building design, but also a way to promote best practices.

‘‘A statement building, that we are ready to take next step . . , to adapt to a changing climate, to changing market conditions.

‘‘We’ve always seen the SAM building as an opportunity to make a statement.’’

The president was unsure whether opportunities still existed for commentary about sustainable design features, adding the community may well be ‘‘living on trust that those involved in it, have committed as much as possible to those outcomes we think (are) important’’.

‘‘(We’re) keen that SAM is a standout building . . . that we look back on and say, ‘Yeah there wasn’t too many mistakes there . . . they did a pretty good job when took into account the energy requirements’,’’ he said.

Mr Pettigrew understood certain requirements were necessary to protect assets in an art museum, presenting ‘‘limits to what you can do to cut down energy’’.

‘‘We understand in a building like that you can’t necessarily go as far as you would like.

‘‘When you can’t do that, it’s critical that the energy used is renewable energy.

‘‘They’re the sort of things we’ve been keen to get incorporated into the new SAM building,’’ he said.

Mr Pettigrew said it could be possible for off site energy generation for such facilities.

By Thomas Moir on today’s Shepparton News - “A chance to make a statement."

Shepparton Art Museum director at Beneath the Wisteria this month

Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) director, Dr Rebecca Coates, will be the guest at his month's gathering Beneath the Wisteria in Shepparton’s Maude 

St Mall.

Shepparton Art Museum Director,
Dr Rebecca Coates.

Dr Coates will talk about progress to date on planning for the new SAM at the city’s Victoria Park Lake and in response to being invited join the gathering she said: “I would be happy to do so, and answer any questions that they may have about the new SAM and its opportunities on a range of levels.”

The Saturday, August 26, gathering at the northern end of the Maude St Mall, Beneath the Wisteria, is at 11:00 am, free and the public is invited to attend. Some public seating is available, but those attending are advised to bring a folding chair.

Questions about the August 26th gathering should be directed to the convenor, Robert McLean, at 0400 502 199.

Art meets climate change soon at SAM

Art will soon meet climate change at the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM).

A special exhibit helping people understand, engage, and inspirit action on climate change will open at the Welford St gallery on Wednesday, April 19.

The exhibition, “Art+Climate=Change 2017” presented by the Melbourne-based Climarte, will continue at SAM until Sunday, May 14.

Promotion for the exhibit says: “A festival of exhibitions and events harnessing the creative power of the arts to inform, engage and inspire action on climate change”.

CEO and co-founder of Climarte, Guy Abrahams, and the executive director, Bronwyn Johnson, said: “At a time when facts can be”alternative facts”, news can be “fake” and coal can be “clean”, “Art+Climate=Change 2017” upholds a long tradition of art speaking truthfully and thoughtfully to power.”

Plan to build new art museum defies unfolding realities

The City of Greater Shepparton this week agreed to further advance a proposal to build a $35 million Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) overlooking the city’s Victoria Park Lake.

An artist's impression of the new
 Shepparton Art Museum (SAM)
the city's Victoria Park Lake.

A personal formal objection to the idea revolved around realities of the quickly unfolding circumstances of climate change demanding that personally and publicly we avoid spending heavily on anything, especially new buildings that are rich in embedded energy.

Rather than create a new building, and incur for the people of Greater Shepparton significant debt, we should be creatively and innovatively using what exists.

My Editor at the Shepparton News, Joanne Breen, has asked that I avoid discussing climate change in my fortnightly columns, but the idea of committing the city to a multi-storey and expensive building is contrary to what will be needed if we are to endure the rigours of a disrupted climate.

Chief Executive Officer of the McPherson Media Group, the owner of The News, Damian Trezise, once said that if I was to again mention “peak oil”, he would “pull” my column.

This, again, is simply too important not to mention as much of the enthusiasm for the idea is about bringing tourists to the area, something that will become increasingly difficult as the impacts of peak oil really begins to bite.

A column from several weeks ago had lamented the idea of a new SAM and figured that would be the last I would have to say about the matter, but sitting through Tuesday night’s council meeting where the idea was given the go ahead, with only one dissenting voter, I was dismayed by the fact that in comments from all seven councillors, there was not a mention of any sort about resource depletion and what steps should be taken by the council, on behalf of ratepayers to prepare the city for the evolving different circumstance of the 21^st Century.

Watching on, it felt as if the decision to proceed with project was being made in a context that equated with what existed in the 1960s.

Subsequently, I sat down at my laptop and wrote the following and it will appear, I hope, in Monday’s News.

 

“W

e can’t stop now” was a recent utterance about Shepparton’s then proposed new art museum and interestingly an idiom that echoes around the world about how we live and consume.

The briefest of searches will illustrate, without any serious contradiction, that we are on the wrong path and it is imperative that we “stop now”.

"SAM" on the banks of Victoria
 Park Lake in Shepparton.

A new art museum for Shepparton is a wonderful idea, but in locking the city monetarily into particular pathway, it also locks us out from tackling ideas and projects; ideas and projects essential for a city braced to confront the challenges of the 21st Century.

Rather than single major projects such as the art museum that appeal to our better-selves, we should be looking at and investing in what might be termed the “fine grain” of our community.

True, the proposed art museum, as it is envisaged, will have multiply applications, but in a broad sense it will have relatively narrow uses and the overall cost to the community will preclude the creation and development of alternative community assets the future will demand.

It is undeniable that the world has already passed what is colloquially known as “peak oil" and so the collapse of this energy resource marks the end of private transport and so the need for all levels of government to invest immediately and heavily in public transit systems.

Beyond that, those same authorities, and in this case the City of Greater Shepparton, need to legislate and act to create communities that can be easily and conveniently traversed by human powered transport, on foot or by bicycle.

Even though a walk through any of Shepparton’s supermarkets suggest otherwise, finding food will become increasingly challenging and so our council should be planning and creating community gardens throughout Shepparton, Mooroopna and all other centres within the municipality.

The push to improve Melbourne/Shepparton rail services warrants applause, but the real urgency is to refresh, rebuild and recreate the wonderful rail network of earlier this century that laced Victoria together, including the Goulburn Valley.

If Shepparton is to prosper in the coming decades it needs to find another way and not depend on exhausted energy-rich ideas of the 20th Century for a conflation of 21st Century difficulties, among them climate change, makes what once worked, redundant.

That “other way” is not about building stand-alone art museums, rather building a resilience that takes its cues from a simpler life that demands less of earth’s finite resources, encourages us to share those same resources, and reduce our demands on the carbon-rich energy that further disrupts earth’s climate system.

“We can’t stop now” philosophy is clearly wrong, we can stop, and we must stop as the security of future generations rests with us understanding the need to change direction.