OUR WORK
Fire Horse
by Parts Department
for RIZER / The Star Brisbane
Location
The Star Brisbane / Queens Wharf
33 William St, Brisbane City QLD 4000
Sector
Temporary Exhibit
Project Timeline
2026
Follow the Fire Horse
The Year of the Fire Horse embodies unstoppable energy, passion, and transformation, a rare zodiac year defined by courage and forward motion. The Fire Horse charges with remarkable intensity but also reminds us of the balance needed to channel that energy into something grounded and enduring.
Rizer approached us in December with a lively brief: create a large steel horse that would bring this spirit to life for The Star’s Lunar New Year celebrations at Queen’s Wharf. By January, our workshop was filled with flame tests, jigs, and lots of laser cut 6 mm steel plate as we built a five‑metre tall Fire Horse. The sculpture rests on a custom plinth with concealed gas lines and throughout each night of the event, flame sequences ignite the mane and tail, transforming raw material into a living, breathing spectacle of fire and form.
Getting a structure of this scale onto the 7th floor meant solving a familiar set of creative logistics: designing a transport trolley that fit a service elevator, coordinating lifts with a crawler crane and forklift, and assembling it seamlessly onsite. A great team, a lot of trust, and a can‑do attitude carried it home.
Seeing the Fire Horse blaze to life and feeling the collective excitement as we welcomed the Lunar New Year was an unforgettable moment, equal parts art, engineering, and celebration.
Whispers
by Megan Cope
Location
Monumental Steps and Podium Level
Sydney Opera House,
Bennelong Point, Sydney NSW 2000
Sector
Temporary Exhibit
Project Timeline
2022 - 2023
A Monumental Public Artwork
With oyster shells, Cope has reimagined the architectural framework of the Opera House itself. Two hundred timber Kinyingarra Guwinyanba poles - the phrase means “a place of oysters” in the Jandai language of the Quandamooka people - have transformed the Northern Broadwalk into a landscape of cultural history and community. These poles, covered with oysters, stand as symbols of ecological rebirth and ancestral homage, echoing the call of collective memory and Indigenous resilience. They connect to a 14m wall of shells that frame the western side of the building and emerge through the upper podium.
A singular artistic statement, Whispers beats with the spirit of community. Over the past year, more than 3000 volunteers have taken part in over 100 workshops in three key sites - the Opera House Forecourt, Addison Road Community Centre in Marrickville and the artist’s studio in Brisbane - where they worked together to clean, polish, drill and thread thousands of shells by hand. Together, these volunteers created a rich tapestry of shared narratives and kinships, elevating the humble oyster shell into a symbol of a community, heritage and Country.
About from Sydney Opera House
Ḡatu Ḡatu:
Tidal Bloodlines
by Dean Ansell
Location
Institute of Modern Art
Judith Wright Arts Centre
420 Brunswick Street
Fortitude Valley
Brisbane QLD 4006
30 January-29 March 2026
Sector
Artwork
Project Timeline
2025 - 2026
Steel is Real
Towards the end of 2025, we heard from artist Dean Ansell, who reached out to Parts Department looking for some quick-turn laser engraving work. Fast forward a month, and we found ourselves fabricating a 3.6 m wide, 2 m tall, and roughly 7 m long monolithic structure for their latest project.
It’s always rewarding to trace a project back to its beginnings, a sketch, a photo, or even a passing conversation and see how it evolves. Some ideas stay faithful to the plan, while others take on a momentum of their own, growing into something far larger and more meaningful. We knew this piece would be striking once completed, but we weren’t quite prepared for the scale and presence it ultimately commanded.
The work debuted at the opening of Platform 2026 at the Institute of Modern Art, where it will remain on display until 29 March 2026. Exhibiting alongside Spencer Harvie and Seren Wagstaff, Dean presented Ḡatu Ḡatu: Tidal Bloodlines, a performance and soundscape installation in which the sculpture served as both stage and instrument, creating a deeply emotive experience for the audience.
We’re genuinely grateful for the trust artists like Dean place in us to help bring their visions to life. Being part of their creative process, no matter the scale, is something we never take for granted.
About the artist:
Dean Ansell is of Melanesian (Riḡorabana, Balawaia, Papua Niugini), Maltese, and Anglo-Celtic descent. Their practice explores Melanesian mythologies and rituals through immersive installations, soundscapes, and performance.
Photo Credit:
Josef Ruckli. Courtesy Institute of Modern Art.
Doff-Stack
by Spencer Harvie
Location
Institute of Modern Art
Judith Wright Arts Centre
420 Brunswick Street
Fortitude Valley
Brisbane QLD 4006
30 January-29 March 2026
Sector
Artwork
Project Timeline
2025 - 2026
Doff thy name, And for that name... Take all myself
A surreal monument to the subconscious, this sculpture rises as a tower of fluorescent rat heads, each one erupting from the next in a cascading stack that narrows as it climbs. Behind them looms a giant, open rat mouth reminiscent of Luna Park’s famous entrance, inviting viewers into a carnival of strange, dreamlike visions. Standing approximately 1.8 metres tall, the work rewards repeated viewing, with new forms and details revealing themselves with every glance.
Parts Department managed the full physical production of the piece, including 3D printing, fabrication, and structural assembly of the intricate rat-stack sculpture.
About the artist:
Spencer Harvie (born 1992, Meanjin/Brisbane) is a painter whose work explores dark, surreal, and nonsensical aspects of online and fan subcultures. Blending found, AI-generated, and imagined imagery within an elaborate cartoon logic, his work exemplifies a geeky life within digital networks.
Photo Credit:
Josef Ruckli. Courtesy Institute of Modern Art.
Ambient Painting
by Ross Manning
Location
Blue Tower
12 Creek St, Brisbane City QLD 4000
Sector
Permanent Installation
Project Timeline
2023 - 2024
A Moment of Reflection
Parts Department worked with Manning, the project engineer and the building developer to develop a minimal mounting bracket to support the 50+ glass panels. The panels were constructed from sandwiched dichroic glass, and work to transmit and reflect varying colours depending on the makeup of the transparent oxides within the glass. The work was installed over 2 days for the opening of the newly renovated building.
About:
Ross Manning (b. 1978, Brisbane, Australia) lives and works in Brisbane, Australia. Known for his exploration of our on-going relationship with technology, his primary focus is the power and agency of the electronic image, the digitisation of the natural world, and the ephemeral nature of data and machines.
His work is often comprised of interactions between light, sound and physics, setting up networks of objects which operate according to their own internal logic.
Words by Milani Gallery
Photos by Louis Lim & Parts Department
The Clumped Spirit
by James Barth
Location
Institute of Modern Art
Judith Wright Arts Centre
420 Brunswick Street
Fortitude Valley
Brisbane QLD 4006
19 October–22 December 2024
Sector
Artwork
Project Timeline
2023 - 2024
The Clumped Spirit
The Clumped Spirit marks Barth’s conceptual departure from self-portraiture—a swan song to her long-standing avatar. Across video, painting, and, for the first time, sculpture, watch as Barth dismantles her avatar across digital and physical worlds.
The Clumped Spirit is the third in a series of annual $80,000 commissions, funded by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund, and delivered in partnership with leading Australian galleries, to support mid-career and established artists to develop and present major new bodies of work.
Much of Barth’s work explores the themes of self-representation and embodiment. It contends with her experience as a trans-woman, navigating the constant pressures of visibility and vulnerability. Her works often depict domestic scenes, sometimes showing idealised imagery, sometimes showing bodies overwhelmed by decay. Mounds of organic material, such as fruit peel and leftover food, are left to sweat and decompose in her uncanny world, which is imbued with a sense of ennui and listlessness.
In addition to new paintings and video, The Clumped Spirit makes a dramatic move into sculpture. Barth’s 3D-printed sculptures are coated in zinc, recalling petrified figures from Pompeii.
Text and images from Institute of Modern Art
Parts Department assisted Barth with 3D design, large-scale 3D printing, clean up, assembly, and fabrication of the sculptures before being sent to be arc sprayed.
A Simple Story
by Sam Cranstoun
Location
Botanica
City Botanic Gardens,
147 Alice St, Brisbane City QLD 4000
Exhibition
Botanica,
Museum of Brisbane
Sector
Temporary Exhibit
Project Timeline
2022
Stainless Sculpture
A Simple Story places an historic Brisbane landmark in direct conversation with the current climate issues facing the world. The scaled-down replica of the Story Bridge is symbolically reclaimed by the Brisbane landscape. Each night of the outdoor art festival, the bridge recreates the lighting of the actual Story Bridge, playfully changing colour and pattern while it slowly submerges in the garden's lagoon.
Presented at Botanica 2022 in Brisbane's Botanic Gardens, this site-specific sculpture explores our precarious relationship with an increasingly threatened climate, the way we shape the cities we inhabit, and the way those cities shape us.
Words from Sam Cranstoun
Architectural Models
by Parts Department
Location
To be determined
The building has to be at least... three times bigger than this!
Architectural models for miscellaneous clients and personal projects.
Photos Parts Department
