First tour of Cockatoo Island!
Today, we met Nisa at an ungodly hour at Wharf 5 in Circular Quay to take our first tour of the artworks on Cockatoo Island, where we will be leading tours for the duration of the 17th Biennale of Sydney. It was pouring rain, and probably the first real cold day we’ve had in Sydney this winter, so it was a bit challenging maintaining focus with these distractions, but we made the best of it. With the exhibition opening in just over a week, the energy on the island is frantic and exciting. The installation crew had their hands full, as many of the artworks were partially installed, if installed at all! Nevertheless, Nisa took us around to a few key works, like the Cai Guo Qiang “exploding cars”, Kader Attia’s Kasbah shanty town rooftops, Robert MacPherson’s road signs, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s electric charge photographic light boxes, and the AES+F nine-channel, 360 degree film installation, which features 75 000 still photographs animated into a film. It was great to actually get out to the island and walk around and get a sense for how the exhibition will feel when all the works have been installed. Furthermore, it became evident why Cockatoo Island was selected as a venue, as it lends much to the works that are responding directly to the space within which they are installed or the history of Cockatoo Island itself.
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