Fox's Lane Public Art
There will always be a light on for you
by Alessandro Berini, Jayanto Damanik Tan, & Selina Springett
As part of the Ashfield Town Centre Upgrade, Fox’s Lane was identified as a suitable site for a suspended public artwork. The new public artwork -There Will Always Be a Light on For You - will be situated at a mid point between two other significant murals in this location. Via this commission we create a public art trail between Liverpool Road, the newly upgraded Esplanade, Brown Street, and Ashfield Train Station. Artists were invited to respond to an Artist’s Brief with public art designs that increased the laneways’ vitality and visual appeal. The artist team - Alessandro Berini, Selina Springett & Jayanto Damanik Tan - were the successful artists awarded the commission.
Artists' Statement
There will always be a light on for you aims to activate the area in and around Fox’s Lane creating a vibrant and welcoming community zone. It involves the installation on a catenary system of large, hand-worked copper lanterns. The work will embody a celebration of the cultural diversity of Ashfield, bringing together unique and individual stories. It will be a suspended emblem of the community’s aspirations for prosperity and harmony. Artefacts of reciprocity, the lanterns are a physical reminder that in times of crisis, the strength and way forward is through community, and that diversity is beautiful.
The hanging lanterns will weave a path to Fox’s Lane curving into a spiral, forming a mandala floating in the sky, a fairytale ‘magic carpet’ that shines and illuminates, casting its patterns on the path below. There Will Aways Be a Light for You stands for harmony and is a positive emblem for the community, a way of nurturing our multicultural society. Enduring in its form yet evolving through the living finish of the copper, it is a testament weathering both the good times and the bad, and a monument to unity through diversity, making Fox’s Lane a place of welcome, with the message that ‘here’ is home.
The Fox Lane Artists in residence at their studio provided free by the B.I.G. Foundation at the Flour Mill of Summer Hill. Showing in progress lanterns designed by the Ashfield Senior's Theatre Group and AshBUG (Ashfield Bicycle User's Group), and how they will cast their patterns when lit over Fox's Lane.
Co-designed with Love
Alex, Selina and Jayanto have been working hard to ensure that their work is co-designed with the community, and to date the following groups have participated. Each group have been supported by the artists to design a lantern shape and the pattern inscribed onto it:
•Inner West Aboriginal Advisory Committee
•Ashfield Park Community Gardeners
•AshBUG Ashfield Bicycle Group
•Inner West BeeKeepers
•Indonesian Welfare Association
•CRVA Mudcrabs
•Haberfield Association
•Sparks Seniors Theatre Group
•Vietnamese Women's Network
•RAIN - Resourceful Australian Indian Network
•Youth Off the Streets- In collaboration with Young People from Don Boscoe and Riley House
•Greenway Birdos
•Inner West Council LGBTQ Working Group
•IWEG Inner West Environment Group
•WCPS Wolli Creek Preservation Society
•Friends of the Greenway
•Inner West Music Fest
•The Mullets - River Canoe Club
•Inner West Neighbour Aid
•East Turkmenistan Uyghir Community
•Bill Crews Foundation
•Inner West Korean Association
•Sydney Food Share
•Addison Road Food Pantry
•Flour Mills of Summer Hill Community
•Maggies Rescue