Clarence Plains Art Project Brightly Created

“Here Together we are Home”

The art project, Here Together we are Home is well established now in Clarence Plains. Driving down the hill into the Plains you see the words WELCOME HOME and coming the other way you see HERE TOGETHER in bright yellow and orange dotted letters on gabion rock cages. Two more words were added to the artwork last year with CREATE a new feature in Glebe Hill Park and BRIGHT a feature in Oakdowns Park.

This has been an initiative of ‘One Community Together’ with support from Clarence City Council and Hobart-based design studio ‘Futago’ and funding from the ‘Tasmanian Community Fund’, Clarence City Council and the Department of Premier and Cabinet.

The intention of the artwork was to capture the spirit of Clarence Plains, to draw positive attention to the area, to increase community confidence, to create attractive and interesting features, for people to feel proud of where they live, work and play and to help the four suburbs of Rokeby, Clarendon Vale, Oakdowns and Glebe Hill feel more connected.

Futago spent six months engaging with the community to come up with chosen words for the artwork. They collated a list of words they heard again and again which were short listed and sent out as a survey for people in the community to vote on.  It was decided that six of the most-voted words, WELCOME, HOME, HERE, TOGETHER, CREATE and BRIGHT, would be used in the project.

Alaskan graphic-artist, Karen Larsen, was invited to be a part of the project, due to her experience with large scale graphic art. The lettering was custom designed by Karen who flew to Tasmania to help install the dots on the welded steel wire mesh, which formed the gabion walls. Karen and the One Community Together team worked alongside Clarence Plains community members in installing the dots for the six words. A celebration to mark the completion of the project was held with the HIPPY program families in the park at the end of 2021.

We are thrilled that the artwork has received several international design awards, being a finalist in the Global Design Award run by the Society for Experiential Graphic Design in Washington DC for large scale public art, and silver medallist in the New Zealand Design Institute BEST awards. We also received a merit award in the Australian Graphic Design Awards spatial category. One Community Together is proud to have brought an artwork to the community of this quality and scale and appreciates all of the people and partners who have helped make it happen.