An artist got $2m to make a kangaroo sculpture by 2021. Now the bill is $22m and it’s due in 2027

A $2 million public artwork commissioned by the City of Melbourne six years ago has snowballed into a massive sculpture installation worth $22 million and is still at least three years from completion.

The artwork, Yesterday, to be created by New Zealand Maori artist Michael Parekowhai, is an eight-metre-high bronze sculpture consisting of a “soft-toy-appearing kangaroo” wrapped in fairy lights sitting on a primary school chair.

The back of the chair is branded with a Boon Wurrung term for the word “yesterday”.

But confidential council documents obtained by The Age show the cost of the project has increased 11-fold as the scale of the installations set to dominate Dodds Street, Southbank, has sprawled out to four more projects, one measuring 50 metres long.

The Dodds Street linear park in Southbank, where the artwork will be erected. Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Concerns have been raised about the funding behind the project and its new, enlarged scope.

The artwork was commissioned for the Southbank arts precinct, and council documents reveal the level of ambition at Town Hall for the project, describing it as “the most transformational public art commission ever undertaken in Australasia”.

“It positions Melbourne as an ambitious, creative and inclusive city; a leader in place-making globally, alongside projects of a similar scale in Berlin, Chicago, London and New York,” a confidential briefing paper to the council states.

A panel chaired by National Gallery of Victoria director Tony Ellwood unanimously selected Parekowhai’s artwork.

The panel also included Wesley Enoch, then-director of the Sydney Festival; Dr Simone Slee of the Victorian College of the Arts; Rob Adams and John Cunningham from the City of Melbourne; Professor Mark McMillan from RMIT University; and N’arweet Carolyn Briggs from the Boon Wurrung Foundation.

Indian artist Subodh Gupta, Australian artists Callum Morton and Yhonnie Scarce, and Louise Paramor with BKK Architects were also shortlisted for the project.

Parekowhai was selected after all the shortlisted artists received $10,000 to prepare a submission addressing the City of Melbourne’s creative brief.

The council commissioned the artwork in 2018 during Sally Capp’s tenure as lord mayor with Arron Wood as her deputy, allocating $2 million to the project. Confidential meeting minutes noted that “any additional costs above the $2 million will be sourced from the private and philanthropic sector”.

But the council’s contract with Parekowhai, signed in 2019, sets out a much broader scope for the project, with four further “component works” envisaged: Tomorrow, Seal and Pleiades, Knowledge, and Intention.

Tomorrow is a large bronze figurative statue, while Seal and Pleiades is a 30-metre “Vegas inspired” neon-and-light installation suggesting the cosmos and Milky Way with an illuminated bronze seal balancing the Pleiades constellation on the tip of its nose.

Knowledge is a 50-metre neon rainbow “that brings to light the act of discovery”, and Intention is a five-metre neon sign that is an interpretation of Themis, the Greek goddess representative of justice.

As part of the project, Parekowhai also wanted to rename Southbank “to acknowledge what has always been”.

One council insider with knowledge of the project, who wanted to remain anonymous to protect their career, said the initial project was one sculpture, but additional pieces were approved on the basis that the money for those would come from external sources.

“Some of the decisions that council made to approve those extra elements were on the basis of incorrect information that was given to them,” he said.

In a closed council meeting in April 2021, councillors requested management seek funding of $4.3 million for Tomorrow from the state government, but the money was never secured from Spring Street.

“Council was led to believe there was more funding secured than there was and went ahead to make decisions about commissioning works when in fact the funding hadn’t been raised,” the council insider said.

State government funding of $3 million went towards landscaping Dodds Street, leaving Tomorrow unfunded.

“There was a rapid increase in budget to $22 million, as well as shortfalls in fundraising,” the council insider said.

Justin Hanney, who was chief executive of the City of Melbourne at the time, declined to comment to The Age on whether the council approved the increased cost and scope of the artwork on the basis that the money for it would come from external sources.

“All decisions relating to this project were made by councillors at council meetings and not by officers,” he said. “No commitment for government funding was provided by officers.”

In September 2022, the council was briefed that the cost of the artwork had increased to $22 million – the $2 million already committed for Yesterday, $4.3 million for Tomorrow, $2.8 million for Knowledge, $2.6 million for Intentions, $2 million for Seal, $2.9 million for storage and installation and $5.4 million for landscaping.

Councillors were told that $16.1 million had been secured, including the Victorian government landscaping money, but $5.9 million had yet to be raised.

The business case for the artwork was based on research from SGS Economics & Planning, conducted in 2021, claiming the artwork would serve to generate $63 million in increased tourist spending in its first year – $4.20 for each dollar spent on the giant installation.

The contract called for Yesterday to be installed by July 2021, but the artwork is yet to be finished.

In December 2022, council was briefed that Yesterday and Knowledge were “progressing and meeting agreed milestones”, but there were issues with Tomorrow due to constraints communicated by the NGV about its location.

“The artist must reimagine the conceptual, intellectual and physical components of the work; multiple alternates are being considered,” the council was told.

In 2023, the council was told “the reveal” for Yesterday, Tomorrow and Knowledge would occur in the first three months of 2024.

Landscaping at the Dodds Street park is finished, but no artworks have been installed.

Nick Reece, the current lord mayor – who said last week that he would sell the Regent Theatre if re-elected as lord mayor to raise money for the arts – declined to comment on the cost of the artwork, or from where the funds to pay for it were being raised.

The City of Melbourne’s share of the Regent Theatre is estimated to be worth between $20 million and $25 million.

A spokesman for the City of Melbourne said the project had been interrupted by the pandemic and would not be completed until 2027.

“Public art drives visitation to Melbourne and strengthens our cultural fabric – and that’s good for business and our economy,” he said. “We will deliver the Southbank public art commission along Dodds Street, in the heart of Melbourne’s arts precinct, by the end of 2027.”

The spokesman said the commission began with one element of an overall artwork at a cost of $2 million and since then, the council had commissioned the remaining elements of the artwork, including the landscape itself, sharing the costs with public and private contributors.

“We recently opened the new-look linear park [in Dodds Street] to the local community – providing residents, workers, students and visitors a great new place to come together,” he said.

The state government declined to comment.

Capp was contacted for comment but did not respond.

Parekowhai was contacted for comment but declined to answer questions on why the artwork had been delayed, why the cost had increased and when it would be delivered.

In his concept for the artwork, Parekowhai said: “I am aware that this body of work is political. It will provoke a response. It will confront viewers, challenge expectations and preconceptions and question where we are in the world.”

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