‘The Life Project’ is positioned immediately to the north of the City Beach Surf Club in Perth, Western Australia. It features three larger than life human figures, measuring up to three metres tall and weighing over 400 kilograms.
‘DonateLife, supported by the Town of Cambridge, commissioned local artist Simon Youngleson to create the sculpture to honour organ and tissue donors and their families who selflessly save and transform the lives of others, and also to draw attention to the importance of organ and tissue donation.’
Simon was selected through a competitive submission process and designed the sculptures with the aim of creating a synergy between visitors and the community space. He describes the rationale of the sculpture arrangement:
“The three figures represent anyone enjoying the spectacular seascape and delighting in the joy of life. They could be family, friends or strangers – anyone. We cannot help but create meaning when we look at human figures in the landscape. What are they looking at? What can they see? What might they say if they could talk?.”
‘The Life Project’ is part of a continuing theme in Simon’s work, in particular his ‘Human Series’. Just as figures are drawn onto architectural drawings to give a sense of human scale to buildings and spaces, Simon’s abstracted figures populate spaces to inject vitality and to literally humanise what are often empty places – e.g. a man sitting on a bench, two women chatting, bathers sitting around a swimming pool. The figures are deliberately generic, to represent everybody or anybody.
Donate Life hopes ‘The Life Project’ sculptures will be a focal point for discussion, to encourage wider awareness around organ and tissue donation and to increase the number of registrations on the Australia Organ and Donor Register. People are encouraged to take selfies with the sculptures and to engage in the social media campaign using hashtag: #makethisthemoment.
