Centenary of FederationPrint Page

The sculpture was commissioned by the Wakefield Council to commemorate the centenary of the Federation of Australia in 2001. It is also known as The Centenary of Federation Gateway. 

The sculpture is believed to be the largest Naive Sculpture in the Southern Hemisphere spanning 44 metres across.  The idea is that the whole sculpture looks like a Federation house, complete with roof and a veranda.  So in the centre are two six metre by three and a half metre walls, located at 22.2 degree angle to each other which are rendered to look like sandstone with red brick quoins on the corners and around the doors.

One wall represents 1901 and the other 2001.  In the 1901 doorway we see the back of a life-size woman, made from hand-made ceramic tiles and mosaic, strutting through the door in all her finery, long dress, hat and umbrella in hand.  Through the 2001 doorway, she emerges as the modern woman, complete with short skirt, sunglasses and a mobile phone.  This reflects the changes that our society has undergone during the last 100 years. The 1901 wall depicts 9 separate stories and the 2001 wall tells another 8 stories of both ordinary and famous people who have connections with the district.

The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia formed one nation. They kept the systems of government (and the bicameral legislatures) that they had developed as separate colonies, but they also agreed to have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation. When the Constitution of Australia came into force, on 1 January 1901, the colonies collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia.

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