This big bunny and smaller versions of the pesky species have been popping up around the Newport Substation thanks to artist Frank Veldze. 73162 Picture: DAMJAN JANEVSKI
By Charlene Gatt
IT’S the exhibition celebrating all things feral.
Party On Down looks at the world’s booming popul-
ation through another plague, rabbits, as part of the Big West Festival.
The installation features Craig Species, a five-metre-high rabbit stuffed with gorse, a notorious prickly weed found in Central Victoria.
Craig is featured outside Newport’s Substation and is kitted out with a microphone and speaker so that he can communicate with unsuspecting passers-by.
Inside the Substation is a city made out of recycled fridges where the rabbits have run amok.
There is an evil rabbit in the freezer making endless money, there is dancing in the crisper, baby rabbits are sleeping in the cheese and butter compartments, while the teen rabbits are chilling out in another freezer.
The exhibition is a joint idea from husband and wife team Frank Veldze and Suzanne Donisthorpe.
Mr Veldze said Party On Down was a metaphor for the way people were breeding, and consuming, like rabbits.
“Perfectly good things get thrown out. We have this voracious appetite for new things, when there’s nothing wrong with the old products – they’re just old,” he said.
Ms Donisthorpe added: “it’s about the have and have nots; the disproportion of wealth.”
“The theme of Big West is Uncontained, and there’s nothing as uncontained as rabbits, or gorse.
“When we reached seven billion people earlier this month, we became more of a plague species than rabbits.”
Party On Down opened last week and will be running at The Substation in Newport until 27 November.
