Rio’s sound contribution to foreshore art

Busselton foreshore has a new public art installation, with Rio Tinto unveiling its Sculpture by the Sea donation to the City last week.

Column of Sound, by artist Harsha Vardhan Durugadda, was the 2017 Rio Tinto Sculpture Award winner at the Cottesloe Sculpture by the Sea competition, and now has a home at the foreshore.

Rio Tinto sponsors the $50,000 major award, with the winning sculpture gifted for permanent public display in WA.

Durugadda’s work depicts sound as marble slices between two steel hemispheres, translating sound into a 3-D sculpture.

Rio Tinto chief executive iron ore Chris Salisbury said the sculpture was the second of three to be gifted to the City.

“We are pleased to be able to extend placemaking opportunities like this to Busselton, Rio Tinto’s largest regional FIFO hub,” he said.

The unveiling came the same week as the City and Rio Tinto raised a glass to 10 years of fly-in, fly-out operating from the region, with the mining giant also signing a fresh three-year agreement to continue supporting CinefestOZ’s Cinesnaps and IndigifestOZ.