Child Migrants Memorial, Melbourne Migration Museum, Victoria

A welsh love seat in the garden of the Victorian Migration Museum is a memorial for child migrants who were sent to Australia as part of child migration schemes during the twentieth century.

The design of the seat, made of Australian timber by Damien Wright, allows two people to sit almost side by side but facing in opposite directions. As well as referencing the heritage of some of those who were sent to Australia, the seat perhaps suggests the split in identity experienced by some child migrants, some of whom still do not know their full history.

A plaque embedded in the paving around the set reads:

This memorial is dedicated to thousands of innocent children removed from their families and loved ones and sent to Australia between 1912 and 1972 under the British and Commonwealth Child Migration Schemes. 
Funding for this memorial provided by the Australian Government. 

The funding came in the wake of the 2001 Australian Senate Report, known as the “Lost Innocents”,  which recommended memorials as a sign of acknowledgement by the Australian government of its role in the child migration schemes and acknowledgement of the contribution child migrants have made to Australian society.  However, neither the plaque not the love seat itself does much to tell this story to visitors without background knowledge.

The Migration Museum is located near Melbourne's Flinders St Station, and just  over the road from one of the bridges leading acrosss the Yarra River to the popular Southbank, where a memorial to Forgotten Australians is located.

Despite the busy location, the love seat courtyard is quite secluded. This could be a good thing for child migrants or their families who might want to spend some quiet time there. On the other hand, it also means the memorial is not well known.

"World Within, World Without" memorial for Forgotten Australians

"World within, world without" is a mosaic work that site low to the ground, taking over a space on the grassed area between the Yarra River and the Southbank Promenade in central Melbourne. Funded by federal and state governments and the City of Melbourne, the work serves as a memorial to the Forgotten Australians: people who spent time in state care (including privately run institutions) during the 20th Century.

Rather than trying to directly depict the experiences of care leavers, artist Helen Bodycomb has instead taken as her starting point the moment of the Prime Minister’s apology, 11am on 16 Nov 2009. On a large black granite slab, low to the ground, a pattern of coloured ‘blossoms’ reflects the constellations of stars that were above Victoria at that moment. According to the inscription, each star/blossom represents 100 children who spent time in care. The inscription also, simply, states: “Many were frightened, abused and neglected.”

The artwork connects with a moment that might be seen as one of healing, and at the same time it gives representation to the scale of the tragedy.

The mosaic is housed within grey rock, and sits less than a metre above ground. Covered by the dust of the city, it doesn’t reflect the light as much you might expect, but is the perfect height for small visitors exploring the area while their carers enjoy a coffee at one of the many nearby cafes.

Black Saturday Bushfire Memorial, Bendigo

The Bendigo Black Saturday Memorial remembers the events of 7 February 2009, when bushfires burned out of control in a number of different areas of rural Victoria. This particular memorial acknowledges a fire that burned on the edge of Bendigo, a large inland town about an hour's drive outside Melbourne, Victoria. The memorial includes the acknowledgement of a life lost; however, the major focus of the memorial is acknowledging the experience of the community that was affected by the fire.

The memorial was designed by landscape architect Karoline Klein, in consultation with a community committee, and incorporates as number of different elements which cover a large area of reserve on the corner of Happy Valley Road and the Calder Highway. The reserve on which the memorial is build backs onto
the Victoria Hill colonial gold mine site, and from this high vantage point you can still see fire marked trees. The new houses along Happy Valley Road are also a sign of where the fires burned.

The main section of the memorial is in the form of a wall, which cuts across the reserve. The first section (closest to the road) is aluminium and represents the heat of the fire, which was so hot it melted metal. The edge of the metal is bent over, and a series of 'blobs' on the ground are suggestive of molten metal. There is a gap which leads through to the mining site, and on the other side of this a section of granite wall contains a description of the circumstances of the fire, including temperatures on the day, and a list of losses:

.. the fire took the life of one resident, along with numerous pets and wildlife. It destroyed 58 homes, countless sheds and outbuildings, cars, boats and caravans.  In a few short hours it devastated an area of 500 hectares, threatening to spread to the city’s CBD, and changed the lives of so many residents forever. 

The next wall panel has an alcove in which are placed the fire-mangled relics of one of the homes that was destroyed. It includes a melted green glass bowl, a bent golf club and various other salvaged objects.

After this, with the first of three green graphic panels the memorial becomes more hopeful, although still tinged with sadness. Another text panel names the Bendigo resident who died, Mike Kane. It states that: "Bendigo remembers all those whose lives were so devastated on Black Saturday, and who fought
back with immense courage and optimism in the face of adversity".  This panel also acknowledges "the bravery and ingenuity of our emergency services workers, including our firefighters, police and ambulance service" as well as the local community and organisations which supported the community in the aftermath of the fires.

A mosaic, created as part of a community project, makes a pattern of a tree, using a design of leaves and hands printed or etched with imagery. One section in particular was created by family and friends of the deceased man. A similar mosaic is on the other side of the wall, although on this side the overall design is of blossoming flowers. It seems that a number of people used the mosaic to acknowledge pets who died in the fire.

A final section of wall leads towards the "Fire Tree", a sculpture by local artist Anton Hassel made of metal and acting as a kind of wind chime, bringing soothing sounds to the memorial landscape.

A path leads from the gap in the panels towards a seating area in the shade of a large tree. Other trees have been planted around but are yet to offer any shade. Here the formal memorial plaque reads:

Bendigo Bushfire Memorial.  A special place of reflection, this memorial was installed to commemorate the devastating Black Saturday fires in Bendigo on 7 February 2009.  
The memorial is a lasting reminder of our community’s incredible courage and spirit. Bendigo will 
remember.  

Before the fire, the reserve on which this memorial is built was very run down and not well used. The installation of the memorial has included new seating and landscaping, and a second phase of work involved the construction of a new toilet block and barbecue area. Visitors to the memorial are probably more incidental than purposeful, as people now use the park for picnics, as well as passing through on their way to walking the paths of the old mine. In a way, the whole reserve has become a symbol of regeneration and rebuilding.

Questions:

This memorial was funded as part of the Victorian Government's bushfire recovery program. How do memorials like this help communities recover?