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Transport Accident Commission chief executive officer Joe Calafiore is on a mission to take the organisation’s latest road safety campaign, the quasi-human sculpture Graham, “across every single corner of the state”.
Mr Calafiore said he wanted all Victorians to have a chance to interact with Graham, in the hope the confronting work of art would spark a conversation about road safety, particularly in regional areas.
“We’re very keen to get him on the road and have regional Victorians get to met him,” he said.
“The reality is that you’re four times more likely to be killed [on the road] in regional Victoria than you are in metropolitan Melbourne and when you pause and think about that statement for a moment – regional Victorians are not second class citizens so the fact that you’re much more at risk of being injured is simply not good enough.
“The speeds are higher, the travel distances are longer, so while there are reasons for it, that doesn’t mean we have to accept it.”
Royal Melbourne Hospital trauma surgeon Christian Kenfield said the sound of helicopter blades on the hospital’s roof usually meant someone had been involved in a motor vehicle crash somewhere in regional Victoria.
“Quite often when we either see or hear the helicopter we know that it’s a patient that’s usually from a regional centre who’s been transferred to one of the two main trauma hospitals in Melbourne,” he said.
“Often but not always they involve higher speed, so the deceleration from that higher speed is what causes those injuries and those injuries are often worse.
“We’re often looking at patients who have been injured to a greater extent because of that speed, so head trauma, brain injuries, cervical spine fractures, often requiring operations.”
Mr Calafiore said regional areas like Bendigo would be the next main battleground in the fight to drive down the road toll.
“I think the big gains are to be made in regional Victoria so that’s why we’re keen to get Graham out and get the conversation going at the local level,” he said.
Mr Calafiore admitted the new campaign was an unusual direction for the TAC, but said it carried on in the organisation’s tradition of provocative messaging.
“There’s no doubt that this is a different campaign,” he said.
“But that’s what being bold and innovative is all about, so we’re really interested in the reaction from people as we tour around the state.”
Graham will be on display at the Bendigo Art Gallery between October 5 and October 30 and will also visit Geelong, Ballarat, Mildura, Morwell and Shepparton.
The sculpture will join Patricia Piccinini’s previous work, Young Family, which the Bendigo Art Gallery purchased in 2003 following her We are Family exhibition.
Young Family also features an imagined genetically-modified family resembling both human and animal forms, with a mother feeding her offspring.
The work sparked mixed reactions from the community at the time because of its uncanny resemblance to humans.
Piccinini said the works had been an exploration of Darwin's theory of evolution, including both animals and humans in the same giant family.
"I think people are confronted by the ideas and then are taken aback by the works, because they are so different, yet so like us,” she said.
"I think I have touched on an issue close to people's hearts.”