‘World within, World without’ is the title of the Victorian State Memorial to The Forgotten Australians. Commissioned from Helen Bodycomb by the Victorian State Government in 2010, the work is now part of the City of Melbourne’s Public Art Collection.The work commemorates the moment of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s National Apology to The Forgotten
Australians on 16 November 2009 . This highly significant event not only elevated the profile of the Forgotten Australians and the varied experiences they had but was a unifying event for them as a community.
The work consists of a large piece of Castlemaine slate, inlaid with a single sheet of polished black Adelaide granite. Inlaid within the granite is a constellation of 1000 glass wattle blossoms. Their arrangement mirrors the stellar and planetary constellation above the State of Victoria at 11 am on 16 November 2009, the moment of Kevin Rudd’s speech.