Treatment I is the third installment of an adventurous public art project developed by Public Art Commission through Deakin University in conjunction with Wyndham City Council, Melbourne Water, the Westgate Tunnel Authority, Scienceworks and Hobsons Bay City Council. The third chapter of this ongoing series will take place across 2023 and looks to capitalise on the success of the 2015 and 2017 public art projects held at the Western Treatment Plant (WTP), Werribee. The project uses contemporary art practice in its myriad forms – performance, video, installation, sculpture, sound, photography – to investigate and celebrate the technologies, histories and communities of the wastewater infrastructures in Melbourne’s west.

A project designed to celebrate the unique features, communities, technologies and ecologies of the WTP site, Treatment III will for the first time expand beyond the Western Treatment Plant (WTP) to make work along the historic Main Outfall Sewer (MOS), which runs for 30 km from Spotswood to Werribee. With support from the state government through the Westgate Tunnel Neighbourhood Fund, Public Art Commission will engage with communities along the historic sewer outfall that runs alongside the Federation Bike Trail to commission several community-engaged artworks in 2023. The diversity of the communities and landscapes from Scienceworks (the old pumping station) to Werribee affords the opportunity to investigate important issues like public health, our connections to the environment and relations with each other. These works will unfold with an expanded range of partner organisations including Hobsons Bay City Council and Wyndham City, Greening the Pipeline, Scienceworks, and the Westgate Tunnel Authority. Staying true to the project’s foundations Treatment III will also feature commissions at the WTP site together with a 24-hr event proposed for the Western Treatment Plant in Autumn 2023.

PAC are excited to announce the artists developing projects for Treatment III include Zanny Begg, Robert Andrew, James Nguyen, Linda Tegg and Eugenia Lim.