Greg Duncan’s Scottish forebears emigrated
to Victoria during the heady days of the great
Australian gold rush of the 1850s, a time when
fortunes were made by men wielding little
more than rude picks and shovels. Although
the Duncans didn’t strike it lucky on the
diggings at Ballarat and Bendigo, they were,
nevertheless, rich beyond measure in other,
less tangible ways. They brought with them a
genetic mother-lode of resourcefulness, energy,
creativity and artistic talent that has surfaced
one and a half centuries later in Greg Duncan’s
own truly extraordinary gifts as a sculptor. At
Derwent Bridge in the heart of Tasmania’s
World Heritage wilderness, he and his family
have built a gallery to house a truly unique
work of art, a wall of sculpted wood through
which Greg tells the story of the island’s often
turbulent history. Seumas MacLeod reports.
or the best part of five years, Greg Duncan
F
has been tap, tap, tapping away in his studio
at Derwent Bridge, sculpting a history of
Tasmania’s Central Highlands. It’s a story of
pioneering hardship and unimaginable suffering, of
convicts in chains, of unique native animals driven
into extinction, of wild rivers and virgin forests, a
tale of callous indifference, brutal genocide, bravery,
stoic endurance and great achievement. It’s a story
that will no doubt unsettle those who might prefer
to forget some of the darker aspects of the state’s
past. Greg Duncan’s monumental sculpture, a wall
of beautifully carved honey-coloured Huon Pine, 100
metres long and three metres high, is instead bringing
it out into the open, warts and all.
“I want people to confront their past,” he said,
“and come to terms with some of the unpleasant
realities. No one with an ounce of sensitivity can
remain indifferent to the fact that Tasmania’s
indigenous people were the victims of a ruthless
genocide at the hands of European settlers and nor
can we ignore the fact that the Thylacine (Tasmanian
tiger) was hunted into extinction while so much of
our magnificent old growth forests have been felled.
These are some of the events that have shaped our
James Lauritz
island’s history. An appreciation of them might help
shape our future as well.”
It’s not all gloom and doom, far from it. Many
of the panels that make up the wall are elegant and
eloquent tributes to the men (including many an
emigrant Scot) whose pioneering labours helped
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