Sandbar shifts back to Cottesloe beach

A roundabout journey for a donated artwork called Sandbar is destined to end up with the creation back on Cottesloe’s beachfront, where many believe it belongs.

The painted steel sculpture was bought for $60,000 by Gina Rinehart companies Hancock Prospecting and Roy Hill, and donated in 2023 to Cottesloe council to add to its public art collection.

The council previously decided to install it at the southern end of the east Cottesloe playground between Railway Street and the train line.

But doubts were raised about the safety of children straying from the playground to climb the artwork, raising insurance issues.

The sculpture is the work of James Rogers, from NSW, one of Australia’s leading sculptors, who exhibited that work at the 2023 Sculpture by the Sea.

He said he had never heard of anyone climbing the work (Shifting Sandbar for playground, POST, May 24).

“Subsequent consultation with the working group found that the LGIS [insurance] recommendations confl icted with the artistic intent and contextual relationship of the sculpture with its surroundings,” a staff report sent to councillors said this week.

Staff looked at five other locations for the work before settling on the ocean side of Marine Parade between Pearse and Forrest streets “to mitigate potential risks”.

Both the donor and artist approved the locations.

The council will next week consider recission of its original resolution to place Sandbar near the playground and, instead, plant it overlooking the beach.