OUR WORK

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

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