Friday 2 June 2006

Museum of Sydney

This installation is in front of the Museum of Sydney. Called Edge of the Trees, it is by Janet Laurence and Fiona Foley. It is the first public artwork in Sydney to be a collaboration between a European and an Aboriginal Australian.

"From the edge of the trees the Cadigal people watched as the strangers of
the First Fleet struggled ashore in 1788. We can only imagine what their
thoughts would have been. This sculptural installation by artists Janet
Laurence and Fiona Foley symbolises that first encounter. Richly embedded with
materials and language, the sculpture evokes layers of memory, people and
place."

http://www.hht.net.au/collections/museum_of_sydney

You can walk among the massive pillars - some inscribed with the names and words of those who arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 or Eora people, others with glass panels through which you can see human hair, ash, feathers or other organic matter suggesting the physical traces of the past - and listen to the haunting, evocative sounds of Eora speech.

2 comments:

  1. neat engraving on the wood !

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  2. It's a very tranquil place in the midst of the city.

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