Toowoomba Project One of Australia’s Best Outdoor Art Drawcards
A mosaic art trail in Toowoomba has been named as one of the best public art experiences in the nation.
‘Splashing back’, an Arts Council Toowoomba Inc. (ACT) project, has been shortlisted twice for a 2020 Australian Street Art Award – in the Best Monument or Memorial category and also the Best Street Art Trail category.
The winners in all eight Australian Street Art Awards categories will be announced on Tuesday 2 March on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
Awards Director, Liz Rivers, said “The Awards showcase destinations like Toowoomba that are using outdoor art to transform their appeal, while educating Australians about the magnificent array of publicly-accessible art that can be found in every corner of the country.
With rigorous judging by tourism leaders from around Australia and abroad, plus second-tier auditing and due diligence, Toowoomba’s finalist announcement has the credence of the art tourism sector.
“Securing these finalist berths in the prestigious Awards further cements the Southern Queensland Country’s reputation as a bucket list destination for tourists who love to seek out art experiences,” Ms Rivers said.
Judging focussed on the way the art has been used to attract visitors and bring the local community together safely under the challenging COVID-19 conditions. “With COVID restrictions on indoor numbers in most states and territories, street and public art is a free gift to every traveller,” Ms Rivers said.
Splashing back is 10 large-framed mosaics that are exhibited on the external walls of Toowoomba businesses which were impacted by the catastrophic January 2011 flash flooding that devastated the inland city and gained global media attention. Each mosaic was created by local artists who worked with the impacted businesses to tell their story. In this way, the project pays tribute to the generous spirit, resilience and dedication shown by the local community during and after the severe weather event.
Each mosaic has a QR code which links to a Splashing back website and each business owner recorded their memory of the flood in video.
The judges said, “We love that this bold, courageous community recovery project and sensitive tribute has also created an art tourism legacy where visitors to Toowoomba will gain a very personal insight into how the community pulled together to help each other through this tragedy”.
Arts tourists from within Australia are high value visitors – they stay 42.8% longer and spend 55.9% more when travelling than domestic tourists overall, according to the Australia Council for the Arts’ Domestic Art Tourism: Connecting the Country 2020 Report.
“Australia has a long history of creating sculptures, monuments and other street art that is captivating to visitors. However, until two years ago there was no way of rewarding towns and precincts that created these art-related experiences for visitors. The Australian Street Art Awards has remedied that shortcoming,” Ms Rivers said.