Art & About 2011 – Sydney
You might be asking: ‘Here Comes the Food is a restaurant review website, what’s an Art & About 2011 post doing here?’. Simple answer: I’m a shutterbug. I love taking photos to capture moments and share experiences with others. The Art & About 2011 event appeals to me for two reasons: firstly, the opportunity to view pieces of art on display in streets I know, where the location is part of the canvas; and secondly, photowalking.
Laneway Art is one of the main features of Art & About 2011, whereby artists transformer alleys and paths off the beaten track into interactive pieces of art.
Founder of the knit graffiti movement, Magda Sayeg, employs a handmade aesthetic to Sussex Lane, infusing a warmth and humanity to a landscape of concrete and steel. Yarnbombing, guerrilla knitting, or yarnstorming – call it what you will.
The lines and arrangement stood out even more after I isolated the colours.
A large inflated PVC form takes the shape of a donut floating high above our heads. As we walk underneath the silhouette is a familiar every-day shape. But scale and context suggests this is nothing like a regular donut, transformed instead into a striking black and white matrix of Wiradjuri design. The shape references ancient European and Indigenous depictions of time travel and healing, and the popular contemporary notion of a ‘pie in the sky’.
Pie in the sky! I enjoyed taking snaps of this display. The alleyway provided such a seemingly perfect background for the colours used. The narrow proximity of the walls set off the focal point nicely.
Street art is by nature political – enabling a sense of personal existence and ownership of a space that can otherwise seem cold and austere. Barry McGee has created an evocative work that teeters between the free spirit of graffiti, the random energy of the urbane and the pure intent of controlled artistry.
Put a subject in-front of graffiti and there’s not much more you can ask for in terms of a satisfying picture.
Acts of Kindness investigates the meaning of kindness in today’s fast-paced world, focusing on the simple everyday gestures of compassion and generosity that occur throughout the city streets and often go unnoticed. Stories of kindness have been collected from people across Sydney to form the basis for Landy’s ambitious new artwork. Visit lower Martin Placeto see Landy’s 13-metre installation, mapping the Sydney CBD and indicating where the 200 stories of kindness have been placed throughout the city street
So there are 200 stories of kindness throughout the CBD, I’ve found one so far.
Isidro Blasco
‘Deconstructing Ways’ creates a parallel world for your imagination to step into.
At the intersection of Mullins Street and Market Row another option to the usual route appears – distorted but strangely more real than the street you are standing on. For a second or two you will be surprised that your own image is not actually reflected in that new street – or is it?
This was a hard shot to frame and edit. Initially the unedited picture was a composition of the real world with the imaginative, but after a crop, I think it turned out to be even more trippy.
Heidi Axelsen, Hugo Moline and Adriano Pupilli
Rogue ductwork is grafted onto the air-con shafts and drainpipes of Skittle Lane to become peri(pheral)scopes: giant optical devices looking out to Sydney’s western edge. The views presented are glimpses of places as only locals know them.
Couldn’t help but to think of the lyrics “we all live in a submarine” as I cast my eyes through the scope and saw unexpected videos: parks, railway stations, blue screen of death and a sunny day (which was quite the contrast to the rainy day that I took the photos on)
Hoped you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed editing and taking them.
We now return to normal broading casting ….. food
D
September 28th, 2011 at 11:11 pm
I love the colours!!
September 29th, 2011 at 12:20 am
Awesome photos bro! But invite next time u noob
September 29th, 2011 at 12:58 am
awwww gorgeous shots! again, i miss oz!
September 29th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Amazing photos – you’ve seen it all already!
September 29th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Gorgeous photos and perspectives; I’ll have to check it out.
October 6th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
funky looking photos! love how you edited Heidi Axelsen’s work
October 11th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
I love this post! Great photos <3
So far I've only seen 2 Acts of Kindness stories have yet to find the rest of them!