Vivid Sydney

Light and Action in a Festival of Colour

The Sydney Opera House stands aglow for a celebration of creative illumination, music and culture and a platform to engage with forward-thinking ideas around society, technology and the human experience. Vivid Sydney 2019 was the 11th annual celebration of it’s kind and featured contributions from some of the most accomplished and inspiring artists and contemporary thinkers. I was proud to be involved in the event and feature an animated display to add my own light to the effort.

I worked with Willoughby City Council and Limelight (a team of Hungarian projection mapping specialists) with a brief for an animated projection art piece with a connection to the suburb of Chatswood, displayed on The Concourse. I drew my inspiration from Chatswood’s namesake; Charlotte ‘Chattie’ Harnett, the second wife of Richard Hayes Harnett Snr., and her quite whimsical description in the Henry Lawson poem “Chatswood”.

At the time, Chatswood (previously Chattie’s Wood) was a pleasant forest just beyond the newly settled Willoughby where, according to the poem, Charlotte spent a great deal of time wandering, dreaming and painting amongst the trees. While we don’t know just how much of her described carefree nature and interest in visual arts may have been a measure of creative license on behalf of the renowned Australian poet, it draws a beautiful connection to the deeply human-oriented celebration that Vivid Sydney represents.

My work “Digital Odyssey” playfully explores the correlation between the advancement of communication technology and human connection of the last 50 years. With light-hearted fun in the use of bright colours and abstract characters, I feel the piece captures a great deal of the whimsy Chattie Harnett is warmly remembered for and left a delightfully memorable impression for audiences of all ages.