Vivid Songlines Sydney Opera House 2016

The Songlines project was the first indigenous work commissioned exclusively for the sails of the Sydney Opera House, in the eighth year of the Vivid Festival, Sydney. The key challenge for the 16-minute piece was to re-create compositions for each artist that mapped onto the sails. Supplied with only photographs of the artworks, the brief was to to re-create each piece and recompose it to work on the curved surface of the sails.

Artists in Motion produced the show. We worked with AIM’s artistic directors on the ‘Gulumbu Yunupingu’ section, producing over 2 minutes of motion graphics using the artist’s iconic paintings.

The piece is a celebration of Australian Aboriginal spirituality and culture through the songlines of our land and sky, rejoicing country through a pattern of sharing systems, interconnected history lines and trade routes. Curated by Rhoda Roberts, six indigenous artists of different clans, national estates and territories were selected for an immersive projected artwork that weaves through time and distance. The indigenous artists are Karla Dickens, Djon Mundine, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi, Reko Rennie, Donny Woolagoodja, and the late Gulumbu Yunupingu.