Olympic hockey gold medallist and Commonwealth Games dual gold winner close to being set in bronze

AUSTRALIA’S first Olympic Indigenous gold medallist, Territorian Nova Peris, is set to be immortalised in statue form to commemorate her remarkable achievements

The Northern Territory’s Nova Peris shows off the gold medal she won in the women's 200m track final at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kualal Lumpur

AUSTRALIA’S first Olympic Indigenous gold medallist Nova Peris has been approached by international sculptures Gillie and Marc Schattner to construct a lifelike statue of herself.

Originally one of 10 statues the pair wanted to construct as a celebration of some of the most inspirational women of our time, the Peris sculpture is now a stand alone project.

The creators of 10 statues of inspirational women on the iconic Avenue of the Americas in New York City, the Schattners are Archibald Prize finalists and founders of the global art project Statues for Equality.

Peris said the couple had rolled their success out to Australia where she was contacted as part of a group of Australian women they would like to see immortalised.

Nova Peris with the gold medal she won in women's 200m track final at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kualal Lumpur

Australia's first Olympic Indigenous gold medallist Nova Peris celebrates winning the hockey grand final match at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Picture: Brett Faulkner

“That comes from the stance I took not only for reaching equality and justice in the indigenous space, but for women generally,’’ she said.

“I was honoured and thrilled when you consider the statues are one and half times life size.

“It was put to us to fundraise $60,000 when you’ve got a statue worth $170 to $180,000 that was going to be unveiled on the promenade on the Yarra River in Melbourne near the casino.

“Then came all of this COVID-19 stuff and the costs have come down to $30,000.’’

The difficulty of finding a sponsor for the ambitious project has been put to one side by a friend telling Nova to make the statue one for the Australian people.

The hockey gold medallist at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and dual gold medallist at the Commonwealth Games in athletics wants to go a step further by erecting the statue at TIO Stadium alongside other celebrated Territory sportspeople.

“I would love to see it end up here in the Territory and maybe it could be the start of many more statues honouring prominent Territorians,’’ Peris said.

“History is important, whether that be good or bad, because you need to know where you come from.

“What we see now around the globe is people pulling down statues they say represents horrible history and it’s symbolic of genocide, injustices and other atrocities of particular countries.

“It’s why people are saying we need more positive statues and one of Michael AhMat at TIO Stadium would be amazing for young Territory kids to look up to and ask ‘who is that’.’’

Peris has been working with AFL club Essendon on the construction of their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Sporting Hall Of Fame in the Melbourne suburb of Tullamarine.

“Up until now the Hall Of Fame has only been listed in a book and you’ve got 320 amazing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander athletes over the last 100 to 125 years where their story hasn’t been told for the public to walk through and see,’’ she said.

“So far we’ve had almost 350 Australians contribute and a couple of big unions representing hundreds of thousands of people have also come on board.

“We’re crowd funding it rather than going to governments. We believe this is all about people and we’re asking the Australian people to get behind it and support it.’’

People wanting to support the statue’s construction can go to the GoFundMe link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/nova-peris-statues-for-equality? utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet.

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