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Time and Tide, 1994, by Akio Makigawa, courtesy of City of Melbourne.
Details
Time And Tide
Akio Makigawa
Bluestone, white marble bronze and stainless-steel sculpture
1994
Corner of Swanston and Little Collins Streets
Born in Japan in 1948, Akio Makigawa arrived in Australia in 1974. He worked as a sail maker in Perth before studying sculpture at the Claremont School of Art and WAIT (now known as Curtin University). Makigawa moved to Melbourne in 1991, where he undertook many public commissions, both in Melbourne and interstate. Makigawa died in 1999.
Time and Tide was commissioned by the City of Melbourne through its Percent for Art Program. Like many of Makigawa's works, this sculpture is monumental in scale. It comprises horizontal and vertical elements, which extend some 20 metres over its Town Hall Plaza site. Fibre optics are embedded in the concrete and the light they emit creates a different mood night and day. The individual elements of Time and Tide loosely represent a tree (signifying growth, knowledge and the land), a flame (signifying rebirth and transcendence), and a shell (signifying the ocean).
