Onslow- Cyclone City

Cyclone City!

Onslow is a sleepy little town where people go to fish and to have quiet holidays by the sea. Historically it was created as a mixture of pearling, farming and gold mining, but today, in part because it lies on the coast 82 km from the main North West Coastal Road, it is a true Cinderella - a gorgeous coastal retreat where only those who know of its charms tend to divert from the long journey from Perth to Broome. It has become known as 'Cyclone City' as, since its establishment in 1883, it has experienced major cyclones in 1909, 1918, 1926, 1934, 1953, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1975, 1995 and 1999. The 1963 cyclone had winds which were measured at 232 km/h. In fact the cyclones have occurred with such regularity that they have had profound effects on the town - it was forced to relocate after the 1926 cyclone and the frequency of cyclones in the 1960s forced the reconstruction of the local jetty to be abandoned.

Paparazzi Pack
Gillie and Marc’s Paparazzi Dogs are the world’s most notorious photographers. The four bronze Dogmen have sniffed out the rich and famous in Melbourne’s Federation Square, Woolloomooloo Wharf in Sydney, the Jing’an Sculpture Park in Shanghai, outside Raffles City Shops in Singpore, and New York’s Brooklyn and Greenwich Village. The sculptures have gone from being an art experiment about photographing celebrities to sought-after celebrities in their own right. When Gillie and Marc first launched the series, within days the life-sized dogs went viral with millions of visitors coming to see them. People from all over the world, along with celebrities such as Snoop Dog, were eager to pose with the Pap Dogs, quickly giving them a celebrity status. Trey Ratcliff, considered to be one of the world’s best contemporary photographers, also came and was followed by 500 professional photographers to take a photo of him Gillie and Marc had intentionally created the interactive piece to expose the pack mentality of the media and how we hunt celebrities to get their photo. “Trey is a celebrity in his own right,” explained Marc. “So it’s amazing that we finally have a photograph of life imitating art. It summed up everything the sculpture was intended to say.”

The Jetty
It is hard to tell exactly what it is - could it be the wreck of a ship? - but just off the coast to the north of the Anzac Memorial is a jagged collection of remnants which is all that is left of a jetty that was built in 1925 and used to be 1.2 km in length. It was badly damaged by cyclones - cyclone damage in 1934, 300 metres removed by a cyclone in 1961, and finally destroyed by the Army in 1982.Read more