Melbourne: the Sandridge bridge

The 178.4m long, 17m wide Sandridge Rail bridge crosses Melbourne's Yarra river at the point where the salt  and fresh waters merge, where Aboriginal communities once met. Disused since 1987 it is now a pedestrian bridge with a work of art by Lebanese artists Nadim Karam. The 10 steel sculptures tell the story of Australian immigration.

The first of the sculptures, not visible in this photo, stands on Queensbridge square and represents the Indigenous People. Crossing the bridge from left to right are: First Settler (convict period 1788-1868), Melbourne Beauty (the gold rushes 1850-90), Walker and his Tucker Bag (assisted migration 1830-1930), Shelter (displaced persons 1947-53), Urban Wheel (European migration 1947-83), Running Couple (refugees 1856-2005), Butterfly Girl )Asian and Middle East migration 1975-2005), Technoman (students and professionals 1975-2005), Walking Sun (Australian multiculturalism). 

Accompanying the sculpture are 128 glass screens, each of which represents a community of more than 1,000 people (according to the 2001 census). They were conceived and underwritten by Melbourne businessman Les Erdi and record the details of Indigenous peoples and immigrant arrivals to Australia by country of origin since 1788. Below is the one for France which shows that in 2001 there were 17,628 Australians born in France of whom 3,932 had settled in the state of Victoria while 79,079 Australians claimed French ancestry of whom 19,023 lived in Victoria. Considerably more immigrants came from Malta!