Fiona Hooton
About the work
The ziggurat references, the Capitol building planned by American architects, Marion Mahony Griffin and Walter Burley Griffin in 1911. The Capitol was to be sited on the city’s highest hill, Kurrajong [where Parliament House is today].
It was to be a potent symbol of democracy and the pinnacle of the Griffin’s Federal Capital plan. Placed above parliament, it was an apolitical building celebrating the achievements of citizens. Designed at a time when Australia’s newly created democracy was inspiring the rest of the world in women’s rights and industrial relations.
The idea of progressive new lands was a shared American and Australian conceit. Indigenous peoples in both countries were usually excluded, as noncitizens, from voting at all.
2020 is the centenary of women winning the right to vote in the U.SA, the 19th Constitutional Amendment. Marion and her mother Clara Perkins Mahony were both lifelong leaders in the campaign for women’s rights.
Images
About the artist
As an artist and arts worker, Fiona is interested in what is and isn’t memorialised. Her work includes large-scale events and festival installations as well as permanent and ephemeral public artworks and exhibitions. Recent work combines her interests in place, public art and audiences, while exploring the possibilities of urban play for creative, political and public interventions.
- Straw Ziggurat
- 2020
- Hay bales
- Sculpture