Peoplescape
Vanessa Welbourn 21st July, 2001
"Listen to people. If you do that, you will discover your work and interpret how to go about it."
This was a message delivered by the Reverend Dr John Flynn to a young Fred McKay in 1936. McKay was a newly ordained Presbyterian minister to the Australian Inland Mission (AIM) and was about to venture from his sandstone and stained glass church in Surfers' Paradise to rugged western Queensland. From the back of a ute, Fred and his medically-trained wife Margaret, spent five years tending the spiritual and physical needs of inlanders scattered across homesteads, townships, mustering camps and mining leases from Birdsville to Cape York.
In November this year, this message will be inscribed in a plaque placed next to a cardboard cutout of McKay on the grassy slopes outside Parliament House. McKay will be one of 5,000 nominated individuals from around Australia, who will represent the people who have helped shape our nation. Those who nominated the individuals will be in creative charge of putting life into the cardboard cut outs. It will be the biggest community art installation in Australia, the Peoplescape.
Executive producer Chris Reidy sees the exhibition as a fitting finale to this year's Centenary of Federation celebrations. "Peoplescape represents that the most important part of our democracy is not the politicians, but the people," he said.
From the quirky to the heartfelt, Coordinator of New South Wales entries, Tina Marie Pizel, believes the nominations reveal much about the depth and breadth of the Australian spirit and identity.
"It makes you realise that people are so strong, and their sense of spirit, their sense of generosity is something to be applauded," she said.
While the nominations include some famous names, many are everyday people unknown outside their local community or field of endeavour.
Emerging as highly regarded traits are some familiar themes. "There are quite a few Aussie battlers," says Pizel. "People who have endured hardship and come out the other end with their sense of humour still in tact."
Also nominated are many people who have been the backbone of their family or local community group, to whom others have turned in times of need.
McKay, who died last year at the age of 92, was nominated by his grandaughter, Julianne Wheatley. "I always said my grandfather was my hero," said Wheatley. "He could meet someone and make them feel they were the only person on earth."
Wheatley says her grandfather was equally at ease yarning with a swagman 'on the wallaby' as he was in later years rubbing shoulders with royalty and preaching at the state funeral of Sir Robert Menzies.
As well as overseeing the construction of new bush hospitals, McKay installed a network of pedal radios linking isolated communities and homesteads with the outside world and the AIM's fledgling Royal Flying Doctor Service base at Cloncurry.
Despite receiving an AC, a CMG and an OBE and being elevated to head of the Presbyterian Church in Australia, Wheatley says McKay remained an unassuming, quiet achiever: "In a lot of ways he was an unsung hero, because he did so much that the average person doesn't know about."
Pizel and Reidy have also nominated heroes for Peoplescape, and like Wheatley found sources of inspiration close to home.
Pizel nominated her mother who gave her a "real sense of community" through all her volunteer work and Reidy, his childhood neighbour and author of ?I Can Jump Puddles', Alan Marshall. "I think he is a bit of an Australian hero," said Reidy. "He overcame polio, wrote beautiful books and inspired a lot of people."
When all 5,000 figures are displayed together from November 25, Reidy and Pizel promise that a spectacular piece of community art will be created.
With the text of each nomination inscribed on a plaque beside each figure, 5,000 Australian stories revealing the enormity of what can be achieved in a lifetime will be revealed. As well as a reminder that even our most spontaneous actions and words can inspire those around us.