The Australian Remembrance Trail highlights sites of significance to the Australian experience of the Western Front in France and Belgium during the First World War.
As one of the nine nations who fought in the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, Australia was invited to create a poppy garden for the Memorial Museum Passchendaele in Zonnebeke, as a lasting legacy to the battle’s centenary.
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs engaged Balarinji to source and project manage artist Tracey Johnson, and garden designer Phillip Johnson, to conceive and deliver the project, in conjunction with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The garden features a centrepiece glass artwork representing the helmets worn by soldiers, inlaid with ochre red e-waste beads from the University of New South Wales. The sculptural work is surrounded by a symbolic planting of native Australian trees and shrubs.
