Liddell Power Station in the Hunter Valley lit the state and sustained its businesses for more than half a century. Its decommissioning in April last year was at once the culmination of a legacy and a symbolic shift in the region's gradual but inevitable transition to renewable energy production.
The passing of such a titan was one thing for industry. It was another for a group of 16 artists who were granted access to the closing power station to generate a pair of concurrent exhibitions to capture the historic moment in creative expression.
Arts Upper Hunter approached energy company AGL, which operated Liddell, in 2022, pitching a string of artist residencies alongside a handful of programs to involve employees in an artistic swan song for the Grand Old Dame of power production.
LiddellWORKS, the product to that undertaking, opens at Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre on June 6, and Singleton Arts & Cultural Centre on June 8, and will run for about a month.
As many as 47 artists applied when the project was pitched, AUH executive director John O'Brien said, and while funding was initially secured for just 11 residencies, the roster expanded to 16 because of the quality of the work. All tolled, six local artists have taken part in the project to create a series of works that speak both to Liddell's legacy in the region and it's future, giving way to renewable transition.
"You have to choose what to confront with your art." Mr O'Brien said, "And the work is extremely clever. Some have confronted the fact that this is something that is disappearing from the Hunter, but others have confronted the idea that this had to end and have done things that look to ideas of recycling and future innovation.
"Fiona Lee, for example, has created machines that are made from dies that were used to create parts to replace breakages in the machinery. She has used ash from the power station and cement to create a new kinetic art machine.
Some of the work is bright and colourful, and some of it is quite coal-shaded. Having them in two exhibitions across two galleries next to each other means that the artworks are going to be speaking to each other in really interesting ways as well."
Mr O'Brien said the project offered artists the opportunity to move into the complicated space around the closure of arguably the Hunter's most recognisable symbol of coal-fired power at a time when the region's industrial legacy was facing a crossroads on the transition to a renewable future.
The project has also included blacksmithing workshops for Liddell employees and creative programs to connect artists and employees over the next month.
Will Maguire, a master blacksmith, sculptor, and artist, created two bodies of work as part of the program.
"The first time you get to Liddell, it's huge, and it's concrete and steel and bricks," he says. "And you're decked out in all the safety gear and thinking, right, this is a bit much. But then you go in there, and it has this weird liveliness about it."
Mr Maguire works mostly with steel to forge his artworks. For LiddellWORKS, he used flanges, hand tools, spanners, pressure pipes, and random pipe connections he found onsite.
"For some of my works, I forged them into a set of legs that do various things. It's semi-humorous. It looks almost silly, but hopefully speaks to Liddell as a lively and active place of people and objects." he said.
"Liddell is a place of history and a place of transformation," Mr O'Brien said. "And for artists, that's a deeply appealing combo.
"We're also hoping some of the artworks will reflect the great sense of pride that exists among the past and present workforce for the role they've played. The artists have struck a careful balance between the realities of climate change and greenhouse gas production and the essential work of providing electricity for 50 years."
