Great Petition, Public sculpture in Burston Reserve, Melbourne, Australia
Great Petition is a steel and bluestone sculpture installed in Burston Reserve, in central Melbourne, Australia. It folds repeatedly through the park, dipping below ground level at several points before re-emerging on the other side of the pathways.
The work was unveiled in 2008 and refers to the Monster Petition of 1891, a document signed by thousands of women in Victoria to demand the right to vote. That petition was one of the largest of its kind in Australia and helped push the political debate forward on women's rights.
The sculpture stands close to the Victorian Parliament Building, giving it a direct connection to the place where women's voting rights were debated and eventually granted. Visitors walking through Burston Reserve encounter the work without any barrier, free to touch and follow its form along the path.
Burston Reserve is easy to reach on foot from the center of Melbourne, between Spring Street and the Parliament Gardens. There is no specific entrance to look for, as the work appears naturally as you walk through the park.
The original 1891 petition was so long it had to be rolled onto a spool to be presented to Parliament. The sculpture reproduces that actual length at full scale, so walking the entire piece means covering roughly the same distance as the document itself.
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