Vivid Light Walk

The first thing to understand about the 2017 Vivid Light Walk is that it is a journey that takes you through streets, byways and secret places, by harbour coves, garden parklands and new parts of the city. Secondly, it can now be easily accessed from many different places across the city. 

Plan to visit early in the week and take a meandering walk around the harbour and through the city, or a short walk through your favourite precinct, depending on how many times you decide to revisit. There are over 65 works on show, many are thought-provoking, ingenious, magical, witty, hilarious, awe-inspiring and stunningly beautiful. There is so much to experience. 

Around The Rocks is the best place to see the major projections and interactive installations, including the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) and Cadman’s Cottage. You can become a composer and dance on piano keys, a maestro who makes the Bridge sparkle or changes the colour of the cityscape. Just sit back and watch how the facade of the MCA morphs into fine art. First Fleet Park next to the MCA also has some great installations for children and families: Never Ends features a magic horse that you can ride to swing into a fairytale; Interactive Human Light Clock turns your shadow into the hand that tells the clock’s time. 

The cobbled streets and lanes of The Rocks and harbour foreshore near the Overseas Passenger Terminal have many light sculptures such as Parallax, inspired by the beauty of stalactites clinging to the ceiling of an underground cave. Similar to a parallax effect, the form and density of the sculpture constantly changes according to the perspective of the viewer. Portholes is just that — windows carved from the living rock that reveal any number of imaginary worlds; while Uncovered World takes this concept even further: walk down a mysterious alleyway in The Rocks where you discover an easel supporting a lonely picture frame. Touch the frame and a whole galaxy of worlds is ‘uncovered’. 

Walk towards the Southern Pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and see EORA, a projection that looks like it’s emerging from the massive blocks of Sydney sandstone. This honours the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Vivid Sydney takes place — the Eora Nation. This year EORA pays special tribute to Bennelong, the first Eora man to explore a relationship with the white colonisers of the First Fleet, and who in turn was the first Aboriginal man to represent his people at the English court in London. 

Ethereal Columns is architectural: it appears to be a majestic colonnade however, as the columns of light dance and flicker, the colonnade reveals itself as structure without mass! See a hologram of a giant skull, The Harbour Watchman, that floats above a pillar; despite his lofty perch.