Traffic signal boxes

Redan has a number of traffic signal boxes, painted as part of a community arts project in 2011 and 2012.

Location
There are now three surviving boxes, two on the south east corner of the Skipton and Darling Street intersection, and one near Skipton and Bell Streets.


 * Darling and Skipton Street. Two boxes with a Eureka themed design by Penny Hetherington.
 * Bell and Skipton Street. Creature design by Kat Barrand and students from Phoenix College.

A fourth box at the corner of Leith Street and Skipton Street was destroyed in a motor vehicle accident. There were signal boxes painted as part of the project in various locations around Ballarat.

History
The impetus for the community art project came from Ballarat City councillor Des Husdon, a Victoria Police officer working with youth across the Ballarat region: "This initiative was a result of a Crime Prevention conference I attended in Sydney where the City of Brisbane implemented the initiative to reduce public graffiti on community assets such as Traffic Signal Boxes. The project was called Signal Art. The very first box painted to kick off the project was a collaboration involving Ratartat, Lumen Christi Primary School and myself in my police youth role. The location was Skipton St and Leith St. The box was the victim of a car crash a couple of years later and is no longer there." "People and communities councillor Des Hudson said the project had been successful in Brisbane and was endorsed locally as a way to tackle Ballarat’s graffiti problem. “Brisbane found by providing art over that surface, it actually reduced the level of graffiti significantly,” he said. “Of the boxes not painted, the graffiti rate was somewhere around 85 per cent, while for those treated with an artwork, the graffiti rate was around 15 per cent.”"

The City of Ballarat provided $20,000 to fund the project with 10 boxes to be painted by a professional artists, and the other ten to be painted by community groups working with an artist as mentor. The project was co-ordinated by a Brisbane company, who had organised the original Signal Art project. Deborah Klein, Arts & Culture Coordinator at City of Ballarat described the project: "The project, Signal Art, had two iterations, funded by City of Ballarat through the Arts and Culture Unit in partnership with the Brisbane-based UrbanArts Project and VicRoads. Artists from around our region were funded to paint one Traffic Signal Box with their own design, then one in collaboration with a community group (thus, Des' part working with Ratartat and Lumen Christi Primary School). Other artists commissioned included Penny Hetherington, Melinda Muscat, Casey Tosh, Darren Platt, Steph Wallace, Kat Barrand, and probably a couple of others I can't recall just now. With only about 15 suitable Traffic Signal Boxes around Ballarat, it was a problematic project to keep going and still offer equitable opportunities to artists and community members. Once they were painted, maintenance of the Signal Box decor (i.e. scrubbing off graffiti, which while slow still was an issue) became the responsibility of Council infrastructure, which was also a problem. Also, once VicRoads either moved or elected to refurbish the boxes by painting them, they were effectively never returned to the project. The VicRoads Regional Manager who supported the project died, and his successor wasn't as keen. Arts and Culture lost support from Council to continue or expand the scope of Signal Art."

The first box to be painted was on the corner of Leith Street and Skipton Street, Redan. The artist, Geoff Bonney, worked with students from the Lumen Christi Primary School to create a colorful design featuring handprints.

Legacy
The project, while not continued with signal boxes, did lead on to other community art projects around Ballarat: "'...though around 2014/15 the general idea morphed into the We R You paper paste-up project, which in the first year commissioned Aldona Kmiec to run photographic workshops with young people and install large-scale B&W portraits of people all over town. Over the ensuring two years artists were commissioned to again create a suite of both their own designs and those created in collaboration with community group members. Artists involved in THAT iteration of ephemeral public art included Josh Muir, Melinda Muscat, Pauline O'Shannessy-Dowling, Karl Woodward, and again probably a couple others. Anyway, there are still a few of the Signal Art boxes around town, and We R You opened the door (and a range of private sites) for the paste-ups subsequently created by the Art Gallery of Ballarat in association with the Archibald Prize and Romancing the Skull, amongst others. I could go on...."

With the installation of the NBN boxes in the streets of Ballarat, and Redan, perhaps there is scope for another project.

Controversy
Like many public art projects, the signal boxes did raise some concerns. Vicki Coltman, an active Ballarat community member and a member of the Board of the Ballarat Art Gallery felt that the project should have been coordinated by a Ballarat person, or group, and not contracted out to the Brisbane company. She felt the council had just taken the easy option. Dianne Gow, a member of the National Trust, Ballarat, felt that painting the boxes in heritage precincts was inappropriate. She particularly complained about the box on the corner of Lydiard and Mair Street. Ballarat artist Peter Sparkman commented "I think in some areas, like ones with heritage overlays, that the artwork should have been in a style that reflects the area it's in. Unfortunately, Casey Tosh's doesn't in that location." Julie Collins, who also worked for Arts and Culture commented "...We couldn’t paint the ones in Sturt Street because of Heritage but the other areas were fine. Lawyers opposite Fernwood (cnr. Lydiard and Mair Streets) complained after their one. But we stood firm."

Other websites

 * Artist Penny Hetherington at work painting a traffic signal box in Drummond Street North, near the hospital. 2012. Youtube
 * Urbansmartprojects - the Brisbane company that organised the project -