Microcosms from a Serendipitous Trail

Juan Rodriguez Sandoval

February 2023 – On-going
Moe-Yallourn Rail Trail

The Victorian Government Department of Transport & Planning, Latrobe City Council, and Latrobe Regional Gallery present, with the endorsement of The Moe-Yallourn Rail Trail Committee:

Microcosms from a Serendipitous Trail, a permanent public art commission by Guatemalan-born-Australian artist, Juan Rodriguez Sandoval (he/him).

Situated across the Moe-Yallourn Rail Trail, the sculpture series seeks to celebrate the marriage of contemporary art, the natural landscape and artist’s environmentally centric art practice. The artist aims to activate the rail trail as a conduit for ecological awareness and to frame the serendipitous qualities of a historically significant Victorian trail. Through these sculptures, the artist intends to provoke the daily, and the causal spectator to rigorously explore and indulge in the complex and wonderous landscape that Country has to offer.

The artist, Juan Rodriguez Sandoval sincerely, humbly, and respectfully acknowledges the traditional custodians of the unceded lands, waterways and skies of the Brayakaulung people from the Gunaikurnai Nations, where he works and resides and on which this art is located. He would like to remind fellow Gippslanders to care and look after Country the way it has been looked after by First Peoples.

The project activation includes a set of in-situ walking talks along the Moe to Yallourn Rail Trail.

This project was co-funded through the Department of Transport & Planning’s Flexible Local Transport Solutions Program, which provides funding to local government and community organisations for small-scale transport projects.