Sculpture's ship set to finally come in - three years late
A PUBLIC sculpture planned for the centre of Woodlark St in Lismore has languished in a shed for three years due to complications with its installation.
Lismore
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A PUBLIC sculpture planned for the centre of Woodlark St in Lismore has languished in a shed for three years due to complications with its installation.
The $100,000 art project was a flagship element of the $4.5 million Woodlark St beautification project undertaken in 2010.
Queensland artists Paul D Johnson and Gail Mason came up with the design and built the sculpture, titled Floating 11Kv.
Their metal "boat skeleton" was envisioned to sit perched above the street, with a raised electrical substation already in place appearing as cargo inside the "hull" of the boat.
The work references the fact Lismore was built on a floodplain and also that the town itself developed as a direct result of river trade.
The idea was that when Lismore was in flood, the boat would appear to be floating on the floodwater.
But shortly after Essential Energy took over the local electricity network from Country Energy in early 2012 the project blew a fuse.
To achieve the installation safely, the substation needed an upgrade, which was deemed too expensive by Essential Energy, according to Mayor Jenny Dowell.
"We believed we had an agreement, but then personnel within Essential Energy changed and the review of costs led them to believe they couldn't justify the extra expenditure," Cr Dowell said.
The council has since resolved the issue by deciding to install the boat in a different location on Woodlark St - near Molesworth St - but it now has to pay for the construction of a platform.
Cr Dowell said council staff were seeking expressions of interests from contractors to build the platform, but the quotes had been too expensive.
She said staff were hoping for a "competitive" quote next week before scheduling construction.
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