Avoca Chinese Garden Small Town Transformations

Research Background Recent research reveals the importance of memory on the creation of place. This project goes further. It engages art to not only identify but to challenge the historical and cultural silence surrounding its important Chinese history in the small Victorian Goldfields town of Avoca. Research Contribution Jones as Artistic Director led a local committee of 18 to create a Chinese garden for the town, incorporating 4 community events. She introduced Chinese-Australian artist Lindy Lee and landscape designer Mel Ogden to the project and worked collaboratively, with them, to create a contemporary Chinese garden for the town. More than garden design it was to be an artwork, merging Lindy's focus on Chinese and Australian concerns with fire and water ('I Ching' with flood and bushfire) with Mel's skills with rock and plantings and her own focus on visitor movement and ecological sustainability, to recognise and celebrate Avoca's Chinese history. Research Significance The garden attracts 20-60 visitors a day. It is also used extensively for local activities (eg, the town market and the local primary school which now also teaches Chinese as a second language because of its presence). Jones led the committee to win one of 5 Small Town Transformations grants of $350,000 from Regional Arts Victoria. It was opened in October 2014 by Russell Jack AM, founder of the Golden Dragon Museum, Bendigo and Elizabeth Anne Macgregor OBE, Director, MCA, Sydney. Its opening received full page reportage in The Fairfax Press and all local newpapers and radio.