The Road-as-Shrine

RESEARCH BACKGROUND The Road-as-Shrine is an ongoing project involving the research, construction, management and monitoring of a native flower memorial garden to the victims of rural road accidents. Initially planted in November 2003, it is located on a 500-metre section of Hazelwood Road, a rural road near Churchill in the La Trobe Valley, Victoria. The project queries how we can privilege process and dynamic forces in memorial design and how this may be a catalyst for reconsideration of the idea of memorialisation itself. It considers site specific landscape systems as central to a memorial's design, stressing ephemeral elements (seasonal flowering, species succession) and forces (fire, rain, etc) whose effect are manifested through a series of evolving roadside gardens. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION The project linked several aims, addressing some typically contradictory approaches regarding appropriate and safe public expression and informed awareness of personal tragedy as part of concerned community engagement. It is a protest against road fatalities but also against increasing restrictions to expression in the public realm, as well as a promotion of safe driving practices. As a practical experiment in planting, the project offers innovative roadside treatment which reassesses current council landscape maintenance regimes and tests new strategies for cost effective rehabilitation and new aesthetic qualities. The long negotiation and consultation process involved those personally affected as well as the many local informal groups and formal government and agency bodies involved in road safety and roadside management. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE The project received the following awards and recognition: 2004 AILA Victoria Award of Merit, 2006 AILA National Commendation Award