Dr Dan Wollmering wins Comtempora Sculpture Award

Waterfront Dimensions: H 375 x W 180 x D 270 cm. Materials: Recycled stainless steel, hardwood, treated pine, plywood, merbau, galvanised steel, rotating vent and anodised photo-etched aluminium. Photography: Michael Mansheim

Senior lecturer Dr Dan Wollmering won the prestigious 2008 Contempora Sculpture Award for his sculpture Waterfront 2008. The Contempora 2008 Sculpture Awards is a prestigious Australian arts event staged each year along the waterfront areas of the rapidly expanding Melbourne Docklands precinct.

Dr. Dan Wollmering is a senior lecturer in Sculpture and course coordinator for the Department of Fine Arts. Represented by Flinders Lane Gallery in Melbourne and BMG Art in Adelaide, has exhibited in 24 solo exhibitions, 45 group exhibitions and has been selected in each Comtempora Sculpture Award since inception in 2005.

"It is a wonderful honour to win such a prestigious award. 'Waterfront' has been an exciting project to work on from its conception to the final site installation. Notionally, it may be considered as a piece of 'sculpi-tecture', where the viewer experience the work from the inside as well as its exterior. At a height approaching 4 metres, (change from 2 metres), the sculpture has a positive presence that suggests action, empowerment and triumph." Dr Wollmering said.

Waterfront seeks to engage and remind us of the turbulent and empowering events - in the midst of the current residential and retail development across this expanding precinct - now known as 'Docklands'.

Waterfront references this history and struggle of waterside workers and their actions improving working conditions on the wharfs around Australia.

The waterfront dispute on the Melbourne docks during April and May of 1998 - between union and corporation - immediately harnessed the forces of government, police, the courts, trade unions and community. It was one of the country's largest and most fervent industrial disputes in years.

The 33 large scale, outdoor exhibits, by some of Australia's best known and emerging artists that make up the 2008 Contempora Sculpture Award, will be displayed for six weeks along a waterside trail that extends from Waterfront City, NewQuay, Harbour Esplanade, Central Pier and around to Victoria Harbour until 20 April 2008.

Further information visit Contempora Sculpture Award  website.