The Heart of Point Cook

We are all about joining the dots in the community! In 2018 and 2019, we project managed the Point Cook Pop Up Park to connect the Heart of the community and create a focal point to congregate and get to know one another.    

The Point Cook mural is a 39 panel installation spanning the southern side of Murnong Street at the Stockland PC shopping centre. Portraying the diverse wildlife and flora of the region, it draws special attention to how the Point Cook community interact with their local landscapes.  

The mural began as part of a collaboration with the University of Melbourne in 2019, where masters students from the 'Regenerative Sustainability' program were invited to pitch their vision of regenerative placemaking to Pop Up Park organisers. The winning group presented the idea of a 'paint by numbers' mural to be completed by community members, with an experienced artist to create a design tying together all the regenerative elements from the University of Melbourne partnership into a physical embodiment and legacy of the project.

The UniMelb team began by reaching out to the local community to gather their stories and memories of living in Point Cook. These became the inspiration for the mural, surrounded by animals and plants native to the area. Melbourne artist Clare Ellison Jakes Cej's design seeks to showcase some of the common and unique elements of the Point Cook environment, including the coastal reserve, wetlands, marine sanctuary and the critically endangered Orange-bellied Parrot.

Over four weeks in February and March 2020, a team from Point Cook and the University of Melbourne scrubbed, sprayed, painted and repainted the 39 panels, assisted by wonderful local artists, volunteers and passers-by who joined in for a day or a lunch break to take up a paintbrush and bring the local ecology into the heart of Point Cook.