Pensioners Hill history to be honoured with murals

The Gunnedah Urban Landcare Group’s (GULG) has secured a $75,000 grant from CreateNSW to paint murals on the former Railway Water Tank on Pensioners Hill Reserve.

GULG executive member and grants officer Owen Hasler said the application had been prompted by members of families who once lived on Pensioners Hill, suggesting that some recognition should be made.

“Following discussion with local Indigenous artists, Warwick Keen and Ron Long, it was decided to submit an application to CreateNSW seeking $75,000 in order to fund the project which will see two themes developed on the wall of the tank, both internal and external,” said Mr Hasler.

“Those themes include representations of Gomeroi Indigenous Culture, the Aboriginal language group of this area, and images depicting the history of the Pensioners Hill site.

“Unfortunately, Warwick had to withdraw from the painting project due to health issues but he will continue in an advisory capacity and we have requested Heesco Khosnaran to join the team in order to ensure completion of the project.

“Heesco is well known to Gunnedah residents as the artist who completed the magnificent Dorothea MacKellar Memorial Mural on the Maize Mill which won the 2022 Mega Mural Award in the Australian Street Art Awards and he has many other works across the country and overseas.

Heesco Khosnaran, who painted the Dorothea MacKellar Memorial Mural, will join Ron Long to complete the project.

“Both Ron and Heesco are looking forward to working together in order to produce works which our community will proudly claim and which will attract many more visitors to our town.”

“GULG is appealing to people … who have photos taken of people, or the shacks they lived in on Pensioners Hill, in the period from the 1930’s until the last shack was removed in 1978.

“Or people may have items which they feel may be useful for the artists developing the images.

“We will ensure that we look after any such items loaned to us and we will return as soon as they have been copied and shown to our artists, Ron Long and Heesco Khosnaran.”

The 2024/25 CreateNSW Arts and Cultural Program (ACFP) Round 1 Project funding will be delivered to 193 projects and will directly support 2,061 artists, creatives and cultural workers across NSW.

A total 479 eligible applications were received with a key priority area being supporting First Nations

stories and communities. Regional NSW received the largest share of funding being $3 million (44 per cent) of the money supporting 829 artists across 80 projects.

Create NSW Director Arts, Kare Rodgers stated the “power of the projects is much greater than the sum of their parts”.

“Almost 200 arts and cultural projects will have significant impact: from bringing about powerful truth telling, inspiring creativity, community connection through shared experiences, and to the intangible way the arts moves us like nothing else can,” she said.

“This investment will inject vibrancy and inspire communities across the state for years to come, to help put culture at the heart of NSW.”

These sentiments were re-inforced by GULG chairman Mark Kesby.

“It’s great to be able to recognize the community that lived on Pensioners Hill,” he said.

“Many Gunnedah people lived on Pensioners Hill or are descended from families that lived there. We want to use the funding to recognise those families as an important part of the Gunnedah community.”