Perth Voice Interactive

A RENOWNED WA artist says she was shocked to discover Perth council agreeing to spend $250,000 on a US sculptor’s work a fortnight after telling her there was no money to repair her much-loved installation The Arch in Northbridge.

Lorenna Grant says the future of The Arch, which spanned the James and Lake Street intersection is uncertain, with the work in  indefinite storage.

The work was commissioned by the City of Perth for $99,000 and installed in 2009.

The striking black and white sculpture stood in the centre of a roundabout with an outstretched arm that landed in the Northbridge Piazza.

When crafting the work, Grant focussed on creating the “presence of a sculpture that would actually embrace and chaperone the public voice.”

Grant said thousands of people gathered around the arch over the years, and it’s been part of countless “protests, rallies, festivals and gatherings”.

In 2023 Grant was contacted by a City of Perth maintenance officer who told her The Arch was going to be removed because of safety concerns. 

The work had suffered some rust damage to its lower, street level sections.

An engineering report said The Arch required remedial work” but she insists “it wasn’t in a state where it couldn’t be reinstated”.

She had her own engineer conduct a review of the report, who agreed.

Grant said she was asked to provide estimated remediation costs, and after consulting with her fabricator, DENMAC, she did so. 

“We worked really hard to try and provide something that was reasonable, that we could, you know, repair the work,” Ms Grant said. 

Grant said the council responded that there were no funds to repair The Arch but requested her to submit other suitable locations that the work could be moved to. 

‘A bit odd’

She found the request “a bit odd”.

“I’m an artist that really responds to context, and that artwork was created for that location, but I accommodated their request because I felt like they were actually trying to keep the artwork in some way.” 

Grant said she only communicated with the City’s maintenance team via email and didn’t have contact with its arts officer. 

She provided two plans, one for full reinstatement at the cost of $193,000 and one for partial re-instatement as a “relic” of the former work for $51,500. 

After a “long time” Grant received a call from “someone from the City of Perth” who told her “they’re not going to go with any of the submissions because they don’t have the money.

“I couldn’t argue that, because if you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money,” she said.

“What made me turn around a little bit was two weeks later, there was a unanimous decision by the City of Perth to fund up to $250,000 to transport another artwork from somewhere else.”

This artwork is the Boonji Spaceman Statue by US artist Brendan Murphy, which is yet to arrive in Perth. 

“I wrote to [the City of Perth] and said that I felt that their responses were not genuine and not truthful, because there was funding,” Grant said. 

Truthful

“The Arch was funded by the public, and there was no public consultation about the removal of the work.”

Last Friday Grant was contacted by deputy lord Mayor Bruce Reynolds who told her that he would be looking into the matter.

“He said even if it’s going to be at midnight, [he will] be looking into this,” she said. 

Though the work remains in storage, Grant believes it is possible for The Arch to return to Northbridge. 

“I want to voice a hopefulness for the reinstatement, to bring the sculpture back to where it belongs,” Grant said. 

“I see The Arch back there, in its home.”