Our very own Wendy Taylor and her husband Craig well and truly found themselves in the spotlight at this year’s Sydney Royal Easter Show winning the design award for Central District exhibit as well as being nominated as Show Champions for which they were recognised in the ‘Parade of Champions’ on Excellence in Agriculture day at this years Sydney Royal Easter Show.
The District Exhibit Displays are an iconic element of the Sydney Royal Easter Show . They are indeed spectacular constructions of vegetables, fruit and other produce elements. They are a cooperative work by primary producers that proudly reflect the diversity and excellence of their regional produce. Each display consists of over 10,000 pieces of fresh produce from five agricultural districts throughout New South Wales and South East Queensland. Wendy and Craig have been the big ideas team and designers of the Central District Exhibit for 23 years
This year the display represented farming, farmers and their achievements. The aim of the display was to demonstrate the average farmer produced each day and balance that against the rising world population. The important message of 1 FARMER… needed to be conveyed using a method that would catch the viewer and hold them. Wendy and Craig used data projectors to display an animation that works in concert with the facts and figures of this progressive industry, providing discussion points and enlightening the public.
1 FARMER… is symbolic of the industry – male, female, old, young, individual or collective. There is nothing to dilute. The display itself was a profusion of fresh, vibrant Australian produce, representative of the achievements of the industry.
The 2011 display highlights the vast quantity of food it takes to feed Sydney in one single day ( statistics can be found here) The quantities are staggering and they only hint at the full story. It’s staggering enough to discover you need 90,000 cows to produce 1.3 million litres of milk that Sydney consumes every day, but then how much land do you need for those cows? How many people to run the farm? How much feed for the stock?
These are only a handful of questions and they are only for one area of agriculture. The drive behind this display was to start a conversation. “The drive behind this display was to start a discussion. If we can get people talking, thinking and appreciating their reliance on the rural sector, then the display has done its job” said Wendy.
Wendy is also been a mentor for, and a judge of our Art4Agriculture highly successful high school educational program, the ‘Archibull Prize’ assisting teachers and students to understand how art and design can educate and inform the wider community and turn the light on about all the processes of production, marketing, consumption, sustainable use of resources and waste recycling associated with modern agriculture today. For the past 3 years the Central District exhibit has been the vehicle to launch our theme for the Archibull Prize beginning in 2010 with this spectacular design which one both the Design Award and the People’s Choice Award
Wendy also had the honour of designing the display for the Australian Year of the Farmer launch last November
