‘Sculpture by the Sea’ returns to Sydney‘s beautiful Bondi Beach, featuring awesome open-air art exhibits by over 130 artists from 21 countries.

Now celebrating its 22nd year on the brilliant white sands of Bondi Beach, “Sculpture by the Sea” still has the power to bemuse, bewilder and beguile beach-goers Down Under.

It’s not just that some of the exhibits are larger than life. Pieces like “Cool Shit” (above) by notorious and provocative modern artist Damian Hirst are guaranteed to trigger a wide range of emotions that may differ between individuals – even between different viewings.

Art of the Surreal

Sculpture by the Sea began as a volunteer initiative in 1997 and over the years has grown to a three-week event drawing large and appreciative crowds to beautiful Bondi Beach. Remaining true to its roots, Sculpture by the Sea is a not-for-profit organization though it does receive just under 20% of its revenue via government funding.

That’s Just How He Rolls

The event’s popularity has surged over its 22-year run and not only visitors are impressed – artists from beyond Australia have taken notice. This year, the roughly 70 participating Australian sculptors have been joined by eight Chinese artists from Beijing’s prestigious Central Academy of Fine Arts. One of the Chinese contingent’s more er, notorious exhibits is “Bank” (above), by Mu Boyan. Does this beach backdrop make me look fat?

Wheel Be Seeing You

Flickr member Ian Sanderson (iansand) visited Sydney in October of 2018 and came back with a wealth of brilliant photos, and probably a lousy t-shirt to boot. Sanderson’s images of Sculpture by the Sea, posted under an international Creative Commons license, benefit from the famously clear and sunny weather of a typical New South Wales spring. Weather of not, though, artist Cao Hui’s sculpture titled “A Bicycle Covered by Snow” was designed to be cool no matter how hot it got.

Oh Say Cairn You See

Italian-Australian artist Alessandra Rossi created “Cairn” as an homage to ancient megalithic sites found worldwide which evoke a certain common humanity displayed by our species dating back to prehistoric times. “The abstraction and simplification of form contains the light and colors of the landscape in which it is placed,” explains Rossi, “exposing the hidden and the imaginary, in a balancing act between fragility and impermanence.”

Layers Not Lawyers

The 2018 edition of Sculpture by the Sea ends today (November 4th) so consider yourself lucky if you’ve been able to enjoy the many sculptures spread along over a mile of Bondi Beach’s exquisite white sand coastline. Besides the artworks themselves, the event featured guided tours, free artist talks, an indoor sculpture exhibition in case of inclement weather, and last but not least a “sculpture conference” at the Sydney Opera House. The somewhat disturbingly organic sculpture above, by the way, is “Layers” by artist Charlie Trivers.

Making Great Strides

Artists who participate in Sculpture by the Sea do so for a variety of reasons, one being the Aqualand Sculpture Award presented to the “winner” near the end of the event. As art’s appeal varies depending on the beholder, who can really state which artwork is best? Nevertheless, every year one artist walks off with a cash prize of A$70,000 (just over $50,000) while their sculpture is gifted to the Harbour Trust and displayed permanently at George Head in Headland Park. Wei Wang’s “Walking” (above) won’t step up to claim the prize but the artist (and his sculpture) can still stand tall regardless.

Residents of Waterloo Estate towers in Sydney, Australia, were given a uniquely visible voice this year amidst city plans to change the neighborhood. The #WeLiveHere2017 project gave 500 residents in two 60-story towers ‘mood lights’ so they could express their views on the proposed future of their home.

“#WeLiveHere2017 celebrates the community of Waterloo before a large scale redevelopment changes the area forever,” explain the project’s creators, “bringing with it swathes of high-density private dwellings and an uncertain future for the thousands of existing residents.”

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An estimated 3,600 elderly and low-income residents will be moved out of the way when a new metro station is added and associated reconstruction complete. Indirectly, the lighting lends a voice to people living in vulnerable low-rise structures below, which are the most likely to be demolished and replaced.

“We chose the Matavai and Turanga towers to represent the whole estate as they are the tallest and most visible,” explained one local resident of the project. “They were purpose-built for elderly residents, and I don’t think I’ve met anyone living there who is under the age of 65.”

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“By telling the stories of this inner city community, the project empowers residents to participate in a collective statement of presence: a beacon to the place and the people.” It is also “a dynamic platform to generate valuable discussion around the importance of public and affordable housing, and the right of every person to a home.”

There is also a personal element to this approach — each light represents an individual, and creates a spot of bright color to help people remember that, even if it looks a bit dreary on the outside, there is someone living in a tower.

The project wrapped up last month, and it remains to be seen how much it will impact development in the area, but it is certainly an intriguing template for would-be protesters in urban settings well worth looking at (images via WeLiveHere2017, Tom Wholohan and Shuang West).

Serving as a bright and bold last-chance warning for vehicles about to enter tunnels, this wall of water painted turns into a kind of hovering hologram designed to STOP impending drivers from creating or compounding tunnel disaster situations.

Dubbed Softstop and deployed first in Australia, the liquid signage does no damage should a car or truck pass through, but still provides an impossible-to-ignore signal for drivers. It is used to warn off too-tall trucks and deter Sydney Harbor Tunnel entry in cases of fires or crashes going on inside the tunnel.

This solution came about after conventional signage failed to warn off drivers in an emergency. “We had a fire in the tunnel,” explains Harbor Tunnel GM Bob Allen, “motorists ignored the warning lights and signs and continued driving towards the fire. These drivers exposed themselves to smoke and toxic fumes from the fire and then to compound the situation they turned around (in a one way tunnel) and drove back out of the tunnel against incoming traffic.”

The wall-of-water solution came about as a collaboration between Laservision, a creative technology firm that designs architectural lighting, and a pump manufacturer: Grundfos.

Rusted and half-sunken yet still somehow afloat on the waters of Sydney’s Homebush Bay, the remains of a century-old ship have become fertile ground for a thriving forest. Located on the south bank of the Parramatta River on the inner west side of the city, the bay was a hub for industrial activity in the mid-20th century and became a dumping ground for unwanted materials of all kinds, from busted ships to toxic waste.

The bay was ultimately rehabilitated, but many of the ships remain, lurking among a tangle of mangrove trees. Among them is the SS Ayrfield, which the mangroves clearly found quite hospitable, transforming it into a sort of artificial floating island. In its former life, the Ayrfield was used to transport supplies to American troops stationed in the Pacific during World War II before operating as a collier. It was sent to Homebush for disposal in 1972 after sixty years of service.

Awash in brilliant hues of red and orange, the hull of the 1,140-ton SS Ayrfield pokes up from the surface of the water, the Sydney skyline looming in the distance. Other ghostly ships in the bay include the steam tugboat SS Heroic and the steel boom defense vessel HMAS Karangi, which helped defend Darwin Harbour from Japanese attack in 1942.

Photos: Jason Baker, gerryligon, rodney campbell / Flickr Creative Commons

A series of dynamic light art installations have begun to take over the largest city in Australia, turning tunnels into painted bouquets and the converting the sails iconic Sydney Opera House sails into a colorful storytelling canvass.

Part of this VividSydney event (running through June 9th), the MLC building begins its animated tale as a small stand of trees that entangle and intertwine to become a single huge trunk.  As the visual story unfolds, “leaves flutter in a virtual breeze. Before your very eyes, a colossal tree seeds, sprouts, and rapidly spreads.”

The process is full of small and sudden surprises as well as slow-building suspense.“Like the dwellers and vehicles that bring energy and movement to a large city, beetles, bugs, centipedes and birds emerge out of the tree, scurry about their business, and then vanish again into the canopy. A symbiotic ecosystem is created [from] previously lifeless concrete and glass.”

Meanwhile, along the waterfront, this year’s ambitious all-new light art production for the opera house will “take the iconic building on a dramatic journey through time – from the birth of architecture and civilization through to the pinnacle of human and technological achievement.”

Other illuminated installations can be found all around the city, lighting up everything from buildings and bridges to ferries and fountains. And light art is only one of its three dimensions. VividSydney “is a unique annual event of light, music and ideas, featuring many of the world’s most important creative industry forums, a mesmerising free public exhibition of outdoor lighting sculptures and installations, a cutting-edge contemporary music program and the spectacular illumination of Sydney’s iconic architecture.”