Sydney seems pretty straighty-180 lately, so to keep you from selling any vital organs for a plane ticket out of this place, here are our top five art installations in Sydney.

 

1. Tankstream-Into The Head Of The Cove

 

 

First on the list is an artwork you may have literally walked over while you were pretending you knew exactly where you were going (lets be real, you didn’t and you still don’t).

The artwork is inset with two glass rods, that illuminate as though water flows beneath.

Artist, Lynne Roberts-Goodwin wanted to pay tribute to the very reason we are all here- the subterranean fresh water stream Captain Watkin Tench found in 1788. Tench, a marine in Port Jackson actually noted in his diary “Into the head of the cove, on which our establishment is fixed, runs a small stream of fresh water, which serves to divide the adjacent country to a little distance, in the direction of north and south.”

 

2. May Lane

 

Photo by Lisa Clarke from the ABC.

 

It is Sydney’s ever-changing outdoor gallery, with renowned artists coming from all over the globe to paint their masterpieces on the art-cladded laneway’s of St Peters.

May Lane is Sydney’s answer to Melbourne’s Hosier Lane, a space that is a psychedelic coloured visual interruption to Sydney city’s outskirts.

If you break you eyesight from the colourful tall walls and look down, you might even see an ode to the Australian legacy, the goon bag sculpture.

 

Photo by Lisa Clarke from the ABC.

 

 

3. Forgotten Songs

 

 

You may have already seen the Forgotten Songs artwork installation if you have ever walked from George St to Pitt St. The installation was designed by artist Michael Thomas Hill and it represents the 50 native species of birds that were forced of out Sydney by the European settlement.

 

 

Peaceful recordings of different bird songs play through the installation. It’s a great place to walk under, (unless you have an irrational fear of birds) and really makes you think about what colonisation can do the environment.

 

4. Swimming A Line

 

Artist Sue Callanan is well-known for having a long history of designing art installations for specific sites, so it is to no surprise her installation at the Victoria Park Pool is nothing short of epic.

The installation features two panels embedded within the ceiling of the Victoria two flat panels embedded within the ceiling of the Victoria Park Pool foyer. The two flat panels are parallel to each other and represent the under side of a swimming pool, with a black line running down the middle resembling a swimmer’s silhouette.

 

 

The art installation was created from blue Perspex and has a ripple effect to represent the fluidity of a swimming pool. The lights in the foyer also adds to this, and makes it appear as though the installation is in a constant state of movement, much like that of water.

 

 

 

5. City of Forking Paths

 

 

This installation was created by Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, and is designed to take you around The Rocks and open your eyes to the most historic part of Sydney. The City of Forking Paths is a homage to Jorges Luis Borges’ story,The Garden of Forking Paths, which uses the notion of a spy story to uncover questions of time and loss. The installation can be experienced through your smartphone, and has been described as an hour-long visual and aural experience, filled with fictional scenarios and incidents that are discovered as you continue to explore.

Without giving too much away, this will be one of the coolest and most disorientating things you will experience, at least while sober.

 

So check these out before you begin the process of choosing which organ or limb to sell. Trust me, it’ll be worth it in the long-run.

 

Words by Mahene Khan