Five years after a destructive hailstorm, a new sculpture glimmers at ANU Hancock Library

After a major hailstorm struck Canberra and devastated the ANU campus in January 2020, several artworks were damaged, including a shattered glass sculpture that was irreparably destroyed at ANU Hancock Library.

This week, the installation of a new sculpture by acclaimed artist Kensuke Todo, commissioned under hail remediation, was unveiled where the previous sculpture once stood.

Todo’s brass and bronze construction now glimmers above the pond in the Hancock Library courtyard. Echoing the library’s internal staircase and the three monumental rocks that adorn the courtyard’s garden, Utsuroi 移ろい (transience) acts as a meeting point between humankind and the natural world.

By symbolising this meeting point, the sculpture recalls both the ANU motto, naturum primum cognoscere rerum (first to know the nature of things), and the Japanese architectural concept of ma.

Ma refers to the interval between incidents or things, the gaps, spaces and differences, filled with meaning, alive in the human imagination.

Bringing together these two references is apt for the Japanese-born artist. His interest in the differing experiences of space in Japanese and Western culture propelled him to study at the ANU School of Art and Design, first on exchange in 1999 and then to complete a Master of Arts (Visual Arts) in sculpture in 2004.

Since graduating, Todo has established himself as a local artist of significant renown with strong ties to ANU and the Drill Hall Gallery.

For Todo, the newly commissioned sculpture feels like a full circle moment.

“As an exchange student at ANU back in 1999, I would have never imagined that I could reconnect with the ANU community as a professional artist,” Todo says.

He says the sculpture’s staggered gradient of the staircase symbolises progress imagined as a continual interchange between nature and technology.

Its diamond formation, mirrored in the water below, recalls the double-helix structure of DNA.

“The sculpture’s staircase is a metaphor for our journey through life and our relationship with nature,” Todo says.

For ANU Vice-Chancellor, Distinguished Professor Genevive Bell, the newly commissioned sculpture pays homage to the courtyard’s previous sculpture, Hezzie Carleton’s Ingress Egress, which was destroyed by the 2020 hailstorm.

“As water flows over Utsuroi, its materials will gradually tarnish, reflecting its own passage through time and paying homage to the courtyard’s previous sculpture,” Bell reflects.

“Water spills over the stairs, pooling around the rocks, dripping into the pond below. Its continual motion echoes the constant stream of knowledge as we move through life.”

Drill Hall Gallery and ANU Art Collection Director Tony Oates says Todo’s work recognises the Hancock Library as a site of knowledge and learning.

“As a science library, Kensuke deeply considered the functionality of the site and its relation to the university, asking what it means to engage as a student or an academic and to follow one’s passion for the sciences.”

Todo hopes his considered, site-specific sculpture will “contribute to the site for students and visitors for their inspiration and enjoyment”.