Eerie bronze heads make up the ‘Heads from the North’ artwork in the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden. Photo: National Gallery of Australia, Facebook.
The gardens surrounding the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) have been turned to construction fencing and mud as work gets underway on a multi-year, multi-million-dollar care and maintenance program.
But despite the fact many of the site’s ponds haven’t been cleared like this since the gallery first opened in 1982, crews haven’t uncovered too many nasty surprises.
“We’ve removed over one metre in depth of just plant debris that’s built up over years, as well as a few knives and forks and ashtrays from the restaurant that used to be here,” Building Services and Infrastructure assistant director Sophie Gray says.
“Nothing too disconcerting. What was really interesting that we hadn’t appreciated before was an extensive population of koi fish – so we had 65 very happy koi fish we had to rehome from the water feature as we drained it.”
The NGA will be conducting rolling closures across its 6.1 hectares of gardens throughout the year for what it describes as “important maintenance works”.
For those who have never wandered through the garden, it’s normally open seven days a week, and is unfenced and accessible to the public from Lake Burley Griffin.
“We’ve been planning this for some months, but we started construction this year in our sculpture garden, rectifying a series of our water features to just give them a refresh and renewal,” Sophie says.
National Gallery of Australia is undergoing maintenance works across its gardens. Photo: National Gallery of Australia.
The broader project hopes to realise many of the designs outlined in the institution’s original masterplan which, largely for funding reasons, haven’t eventuated yet.
“It’s a really great opportunity for us to renew, as well as look at new acquisitions of sculptures within the gardens, and just making it as accessible as possible for visitors.”
Sophie says the NGA has received a “renewal of interest”, especially since the October 2024 arrival of the 13-tonne, $14 million Ouroboros sculpture which depicts a snake eating its own tail.
“Every day of the week … we’ve seen so many people coming to the gardens.”
Donors will fund the entire project. The NGA is setting a target figure of $60 million; it’s so far raised $35.5 million.
The initial works not only focus on draining and clearing out the marsh pond, famous for the slightly haunting 66 bronze human heads that poke above its surface, but also the ‘Within without’ skyspace sculpture by American artist James Turrell.
“The skyspace has two water features, the external we call our billabong. With the external, the bullrushes have overtaken a lot of it, so we’ve drained it and removed the bullrushes back to the original planting … and checked the membrane for water leaks.”
Many of the garden’s plant species will be replaced by natives sourced from local nurseries. So no, the koi fish won’t be going back in the marsh pond.
“Part of the original design ethos for the sculpture gardens was that it’s to be a native garden, so … we won’t put the koi fish back in because they tend to eat the tadpoles of native frogs.”
`Within without’ sculpture, National Gallery of Australia. Photo: National Gallery of Australia.
The NGA has also planted 1500 new native ground covers in the Australian garden section. An extra layer of shrubs will follow in spring as works continue throughout 2025.
“With the Skyspace that closed this week, we’re targeting a construction period of eight weeks,” Sophie says. “But it is a little bit like an archaeological dig in that until we drain some of these ponds, we don’t always know the detail of what we’re dealing with in terms of water leaks.”
Visitors are encouraged to check the NGA website before their visit to see what artworks are open.
