A world of art. Here. Now.

Winter is one of my favourite times of the year on the Sydney cultural scene. Although summer has the fabulous flashy Sydney Festival, there's still a lot going on in the city in the colder months. A couple of weeks ago I caught the free ferry out to Cockatoo Island -- the largest island on the harbour -- where they host the Biennale every two years. You may remember when I visited in 2008.



The island used to be an old shipbuilding hub, among other things, and many remnants of that industrial era still remain. Although the whole place was peppered with incredible art, sculpture, video art and more, sometimes I was more fascinated by the buildings and leftover machinery than the art itself!





My two favourite pieces were actually video art, so I have no photographs. One was an incredibly moving piece by Isaac Julien about the Chinese cockle-pickers who died at Morecambe Bay -- it was projected onto seven screens suspended from the ceiling and was quite incredible, and very moving.

Lots of the rest of the art was fun.

Exploding cars!

Green colanders suspended from the ceiling

A sign about the Cockatoos

This year I was much more able to enjoy it, having not been rendered by the festival immediately prior! More about that in a later post.

cx