Boddington Sculpture Competition to help town become sculpture capital of WA

With a combined prize pool of more than $33,000, the Boddington Sculpture Competition is a key part of a vision to make Boddington the sculpture capital of WA.

Over the past few months, the Shire of Boddington has completed an Albany Highway entry statement and a mosaic wall at Hotham Park.

Now, it plans to use the winning designs from its competition to create a sculpture walk and drive. “We have a number of prizes that are acquisitive so the concept being that we will actually, as our name has indicated, be the town of sculpture,” Shire economic and community development officer Leanne Bryant said.

The 2021 competition will feature five categories, including a young sculptor section and junior sculptor section, with a $10,000 acquisitive prize offered for first place in the open theme.

There is also a people’s choice category and local sculptor category with first place prizes of $6000 and $5000 acquisitive.

The biannual competition aims to attract artists from near and far, with the sculpture drive set to be completed within the next nine months, featuring winning entries from this year and 2019.

“We’ve got some lovely walk trails ... and it’s an opportunity for site-specific artworks to be placed on the trail,” Ms Bryant said. “I use the term site-specific so that say (the artist) wanted to put something in front of Bodd Tyres, they might have mufflers and things like that all attached to it.

“We’ve also introduced a junior sculpture under 18 and we’ve been working with the Narrogin Ag college, Narrogin high school and our own Boddington school to try and get the young artists involved.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to start appreciating art out in the community.”