Wurrungwuri was officially installed this time last year. It is a gift from a private citizen, to the citizens of Sydney, and is located along the fence-line of Government House in the Royal Botanic Gardens.
It is composed of two, apparently separate, but conceptually cohesive, components. The sandstone blocks are a cascading wave heading towards Farm Cove. The monolith consists of about 16,000 quartz pebbles.
The sign, built into the monolith, is duplicated from a rare shield of the Cadigal peoples, the original inhabitants of the area, pre European settlement.
I have included, after my photographs, an animation from the Wurrungwurri web-site. It is amazing to see the concepualisation of the sculptor, Chris Booth. It is available on U-Tube, so I figure no copyright is being breached. Do watch this animation. The engineering is astounding.
27 comments:
Given the size of this installation, it is not easy to convey the full extent of the works, but you have done this beautifully Julie. Great captures.
Julie, this is a stunning installation and I think that the first two photos "rock" -- seriously, these are fabulous!
Have you seen or read about the spiders in Sydney, building huge mountains of webs to survive the floods?
Bises,
Genie
I saw a photograph yesterday about the plight of the spiders. Quite surreal. They are not actually in Sydney, but quite a few hundred kilometres to the SW of Sydney.
Very nice shots and interesting information about this unusual installation!
Thanks for sharing;o)
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Hope you are having a nice week****
Your shots are great close up. I only photographed these from a distance. I really like the perspective in that first one.
Wow! Incredible structures.
Just....WOW!
That is amazing! Both of them.
It seems almost impossible that this doesn't collapse in on itself.
Very impressive, (though I don't really get the connection between the monolith and the wave)
Was this made at the location - it would have been fascinating to watch it being put together.
Watching the video, every time you think you know where it is going next, there is a surprise direction.
Nice photos! The first one looks like thousand of eggs piled on top of each other!
Sann: I don't get the connection either. It took me a while of wandering between the two to understand that they were connected in the designer's mind. I quite like them individually.
I'm glad I watched the video. I still can't quite fathom how the designer thought of it doing it, but at least now I can understand something of how this part was built.
When I first opened this post, I thought you had taken a photo of a pile of potatoes.
I'm late getting around to posting today but we were busy getting our kitchen reno underway. It will be a long time before it's done, so I'll try to think of it as installation of a work of art.
K
I just looked up Cadigal and this is all the more impressive since there were only about 50-80 of them in Sydney (according to Wikipedia).
impressive installations. i love the texture of the pebbles.
I can only imagine how impressive this is to see in person!
Fantastic sculptures. Great shots.
Fabulous artwork. The first one is my favourite. I wondered what what it was until I scrolled down to the second photo.
Lesley: I have read that stub in Wiki estimating that the Cadigal population was 50-80 at the time of European settlement. This figure does not ring true to me. I am not sure just what the figure is, but know that the tribe was decimated by small pox the year after european settlement, ie in 1789. I gather that the official estimates are not to be 'trusted'.
The top piece looks like a giant piece of crochet, like you could pick it up and put it on your head. The river stones are really really beautiful. I'm not so sure about the cave thingie though.
Wonderful post- how creative.
Interesting work
the stones are beautiful
AMAZING! Love them both.
This is a very impressive installation!
Inside Cambodia
Beautifully shown Julie, the video was brilliant, oh how the artist's mind works!
Yes, I was doubtful about that number, too. I thought maybe that was how many were left after the Europeans (inevitable) sharing of smallpox (as they did in Canada). And it went through my mind that that monolith was rather cairn like, as if in memoriam.
Then again, maybe I think too much.
i really like the first 2 pics!
a fabulous entry for april's theme.
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