A new permanent workers’ memorial, commissioned through a partnership between Victorian Trades Hall, WorkSafe and the City of Melbourne, has been designed in consultation with families of workers who have lost their lives, and will provide a focal point for future events and other significant occasions throughout the year.
The $2.5 million project will create a meaningful space where families, friends and colleagues of workers who have died due to a work-related incident or illness can gather, reflect and commemorate their lives.
The design will complement the existing Eight Hour Monument on the same site, which was completed in 1903 and celebrates those who fought to make Victoria the first place in the world to mandate the eight-hour working day.
The dynamically curving sculptural memorial takes the form of an incomplete ring. This shape represents the void left by those lost, while also creating a space in which to be enveloped. The incomplete “0” also embodies the aspiration for zero workplace fatalities which guides the collective future for worker safety.
The memorial’s eight coloured glass panels, located in a suspended arch cantilevered into the sky, will cast beams of golden light onto the granite surface of the memorial’s interior, visually connecting the workday’s hours, the passage of time and our persistence in remembering those lost. A crystal embedded in this interior surface will send fractured light throughout the space at 11am on International Workers’ Memorial Day, 28 April, symbolising the light of many, shining for lost workers and those still fighting for workplace safety.
Workers’ memorial artist illustrations
Artists illustrations’
Designed by international award-winning artist Jill Anholt, the memorial created from locally sourced stone, steel, and coloured glass, will be installed at Eight Hour Monument Reserve, at the corner of Victoria and Russell streets in central Melbourne, across from the Victorian Trades Hall Council building.
About the artist
Jill Anholt is a Canadian artist whose practice includes commissioned environmental and sculptural installations and collaborative design team projects for public spaces internationally.
Beginning with a process of extensive research and careful observations gleaned from the site and from the communities she works within, Jill synthesises her discoveries into layered, multidimensional art experiences that invite human engagement, creating spaces for reflection and personal connection.
Jill has created past memorials for WorkSafeBC in Vancouver (Line of Work) and Fort Calgary in Alberta (Marking). She was a finalist for the creation of a memorial for Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa (Samara) and several other national and international memorial competitions. Jill has strong ties to Australia and is married to an Australian citizen.
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