Sculpture By The Sea is part of this year's Olympic Arts Festival, A Sea Change.  A brief review of the five events that took place around Australia in Darwin, Noosa Heads, Bondi, Tasman Peninsular and Albany, appeared on Andrea Stretton's Sunday afternoon arts program, December 6, 1998.

This project was an important one for Albany, 400 kilometres from Perth, promoting the new City of Albany and sculpture and it was supported with great enthusiasm by the public.  Something like 52,000 visitors, more than half the numbers to visit the Sydney event, walked the 1.5kms of the Whale Walk overlooking King George Sound during the nine days it was on display, compared to the four days of the Sydney event.

The logistics of making and transporting professional works over such distances in W.A. required an enormous effort on the part of those artists specially invited to support the event, but their support was vital for the project to be primarily an art event.  Without the goodwill and generosity of those professionals we could not have had the success we did.  We had to operate on a very tight schedule having lost three months organizing time due to the fact the event had been first offered to Broome.  It was therefore very satisfying to see so many challenging and site specific works.

The promotion in Sydney offered our specially invited professionals did not happen and the brief review on the television program did not mention the works our prestigious judges thought to be the best.  In fact, although many strong works were shown from other venues, those shown from the Albany event seemed to be the works most easily accessed and of a whimsical and illustrative nature.  There was no attempt to show the breadth and depth of the event as a whole.

Of the total of 300 sculptures 75 comprised the display in Albany, ranging from amateur works to those of a highly skilled professional nature.  This all inclusive formula has been successfully applied to the Albany Art Prize for many years.

As a cultural Olympic event described as the 'Jewel in the Crown' of this year's Festival, one would have thought that it was worthy of more in-depth coverage rather than an after-the-event promotion of less than fifteen minutes duration.  We can be assured that the Olympic sporting events will receive great accolades, especially the winners.  It makes one think that the cultural aspect is not taken very seriously, despite the fact that the value of the arts to our economy is well known.  The enormous range and vitality of works celebrating the coasts of Australia has been reduced to a quarter-of-an-hour entertainment, albeit charming in its presentation.