A giant ant designed by Broken Hill artist Pro Hart, displayed in the Broken Hill Conservation Gardens after being moved from the Stephens Creek Hotel site in 1990.
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This takes you to the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Site-level location · 31.9593° S, 141.4602° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Pro Hart designed the Big Ant, and it is dedicated to the workers of Broken Hill and their struggles.
That dedication is what separates it from every other oversized insect in this catalogue. Broken Hill is a mining town whose history is inseparable from organised labour – the Barrier Industrial Council, the long strikes, the lock-outs and the eventual achievement of some of the strongest working conditions in the country. An ant, working, is a considered emblem for that rather than a whimsical choice.
Hart was Broken Hill's most famous artist, a former mine worker who became one of Australia's best-known painters, and his work returned repeatedly to the town, its people and its dust. That he designed the ant gives the sculpture a provenance most roadside objects lack entirely.
It was originally at the Stephens Creek Hotel site and was moved in 1990 into the Broken Hill Conservation Gardens at the Lions Recreational Reserve, on the corner of Beryl and Bromide streets, where current NSW Government and Broken Hill tourism material confirms it.
Broken Hill has a considerable art culture for a town of its size and remoteness – the Living Desert sculptures on the ridge outside town, the Hart gallery, the school of painters that formed around him – and the ant belongs to that rather than to the highway-novelty tradition.
The documentation is missing any figures for its size or the year.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Current NSW Government and Broken Hill tourism material confirms the Big Ant in the Broken Hill Conservation Gardens at the Lions Recreational Reserve, corner of Beryl and Bromide streets.
ACCESS
Navigate to the Broken Hill Conservation Gardens at the Lions Recreational Reserve. Use the reserve access and keep vehicles to legal parking or access areas rather than stopping on surrounding roads.
