The House of Mirrors has been such a wonderful journey for us since we first presented it in Hobart, Tasmania for MONA’s Dark Mofo winter festival.

In just 10 months, we have since staged it around Australia; Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and now here in Bendigo - our first regional location.

The wonderful thing for us as the artists, is simply watching people enjoy it.

And each city we have visited, the response has been fantastic.

We wanted to put a few words down on paper as an open letter to the people of Bendigo, to say thank you for your encouraging feedback and for the capacity attendances over its four week run in Rosalind Park.

We want to let it be known that the feedback in Bendigo has been heartfelt, enthusiastic and kind.

We love that the people of this great town have responded to it so well and have enjoyed it so very much.

To be honest, this location and the people visiting have been our favourite location so far.

Working closely with the Bendigo Art Gallery and La Trobe Art Institute, assembling a fantastic local crew who all took on the challenge of setting up and running the show with aplomb, we knew from day one of installation it was going to be great fun.

So to everyone that has attended, to all the local people that have worked on the project and made it possible, thank you.

House of Mirrors is about to take on the world, and we will always mention Bendigo as our favourite showplace on the Australian tour.

Thanks, Bendigo.

You are a wonder!

Many readers will recall on the eve of the election of our new Greater Bendigo city council the Bendigo Advertiser provided some sound wisdom and advice for the new council, which paraphrased, urged greater consultation with the ratepayers and the development of a listening protocol to ensure that the view of the population are reflected in the decision of the council.

I am heartened to read the letter to the editor by our mayor Margaret O’Rourke in Saturday’s edition of the Bendigo Advertiser outlining frustration at the criticism of Messrs McKenzie and Coleman as self proclaimed critics of the council.

The new council has only been in operation since November and has done a great deal to formulate a new council plan with extraordinary efforts to gain the views of the electorate about the ideas and concepts contained in the plan.

The vast majority of the population are silent about these plans, as it is my view that they are accepting the concepts, yet we still have to endure the small minority of noisy council bashers.

Out critics if they want to be constructive should delve into the way that the state government has taken control to our local government stripping it of its independence and ability to respond to issues that affect this community, issues like planning directives, EPA fees, tendering processes, financial reporting to name a few.

The state has offloaded many costs to local government without any corresponding financial assistance.

These are the issues that prevent the council from being as effective as it could become and erodes the independence of the councillors to make decisions for our community.