Perth Voice Interactive

BIG developers operating in the Perth CBD may soon have to shell out one per cent of the cost of their projects for public artworks, and more Aboriginal art may one day grace the streets.

Perth city council is playing catchup with Vincent and Bayswater councils in floating the idea for its own per cent for public art scheme.

In Vincent the scheme has paid for works like the Hollywoodesque Beaufort Street sign, the Chen Wen Ling sculpture on Vincent Street, and the questionable OMG outside the Beaufort Street McDonalds.

The PCC reckons it needs more cash for artworks (though not stated quite so succinctly in the bulky bureaucratic draft strategy) and putting a hat out to the private realm is a good way to “enhance aesthetic appeal of developments within the city” and “invite more people into the city”.

With developments in the CBD in the tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars, even a one per cent commission can mean serious art.

Council staffers are keen to “ensure that the Aboriginal community has a voice and a presence in the city’s enduring public art” (though not explicitly called out in the document, an enormous number of the statues in the city are dead white men—Alexander Forrest, Bishop Hale, John Septimus Roe, Captain Stirling, Edmund Rice and Charles Court to name but a few).

The draft’s up on the PCC website for comment till May 15.

by DAVID BELL