Great Petition
Great Petition by Susan Hewitt and Penelope Lee. Burston Reserve, Melbourne.
Photo: Diana Diiorio
Created by artists Susan Hewitt and Penelope Lee, the large-scale sculpture Great Petition was launched on 3 December 2008 to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of women's right to vote in Victoria. It provides an impressive and enduring focus on the issue of women's contribution to public life and was commissioned by the State Government of Victoria in collaboration with the City of Melbourne.
Great Petition is a contemporary reading of the "Monster Petition", a giant petition of 30,000 signatures offered to the Victorian Parliament in 1891 as evidence of widespread support for equal voting rights for women. Great Petition is a permanent acknowledgement of those who united to bring about change.
The continuing opposition of the parliament, which knocked back numerous Bills, meant that women had to wait another seventeen years before they were given voting rights with the passage of the Adult Suffrage Act in 1908. The petition itself has been digitised and can be searched online for the names of signatories.
Located in Burston Reserve, between Macarthur Street and Parliament Place, in close proximity to Parliament House where the original petition was delivered, the twenty metre long scroll-like form, comprising two steel elements and painted in parchment white, appears to submerge into either side of the pathway that intersects the park, thereby enfolding pedestrians in the work as they pass through its form.
The plinth, designed in consideration of the sloping site, is made of bluestone, grounding the artwork in an archetypal Melbourne material. Alongside the sculpture, there is a didactic panel by Australian historian, Professor Marilyn Lake, explaining the history of women's suffrage in Victoria.
You can learn more about the history of women's suffrage in Victoria on Public Record Office Victoria's 1891 Women's Suffrage Petition wiki page.