Conflict Invites Resolution, 2016, digitally printed mural, 12x6m. Portraiture, Rebeccah Power; Concept design, W.Wilding. 

Conflict Invites Resolution was the first part of Shaping Change. Initiating the following two parts, The Reckoning at the Southern Cross Hotel and Universal Principle, it examined the nature of liberty and necessity with a focus on the emancipation of women. It became the first frame of the video, whose last frames featured the sculpture. Together they tell the entwined stories of a beautiful love and a terrible murder that happened after the Gold Rush in The Panic of 1893.

The characters below powered Shaping Change's narrative. Introduced through the mural, they each symbolised the power to accept and thereby shape change. All portraiture below by Rebeccah Power. All text below by William Wilding.  

Alice Green

Alice Green came to Australia to capitalize on the Gold Rush. The two sides of her shown in the mural investigate how social values can generate internal conflict.

John Fraser

John Fraser had been heir to a fortune. However, reflection upon his relationships enabled him to release himself from historical structure that imprisoned him.

 Cecelia Anderson

Cecelia Anderson attempted suicide after shooting John Fraser at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne in 1894. As the story goes, John, who had resided at her Sydney boarding house, borrowed money from her and promised to marry her. However, he instead moved to Melbourne, where he became obsessed in a passionate love affair. This prompted a jealous rage in Cecelia, who arrived with revolver in hand at the Southern Cross, where she executed him in public.

*The characters above are fictional representations of real people researched through the Victorian Police Museum.