The Offering

Pre-demolition 1900's Baptist Church

Dandenong, Australia, 2011

The Offering was a contemporary art intervention created by Robbie Rowlands in a single story weatherboard church and community hall in Dandenong, Victoria, Australia. The Church was officially opened in August 1904. In this same month, August 2009 – 105 years later – Rowlands’ arts intervention took place.

The artwork was produced using only the materials contained within its walls to create a visually powerful site specific installation. The Offering revealed the history of the site through exposed layers and sculptural forms that peeled and bent the inner surfaces of the building. Refusing the temptations of aestheticism or overt symbolism, Rowlands staged a complex mediation between the ageing structure and its former identity as a spiritual or communal anchor. The result was a profound encounter between the current state of the building and traces of its past, as well as a complex interrogation of the building’s interior spaces and materials.

Commissioned by the City of Greater Dandenong

Project management Jenny Pemberton-Webb

This project was supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria