Praise be to Outpost and Oi You! for bringing Banksy to Sydney.
We made a return trip to the Outpost Project at Cockatoo Island yesterday, taking the grandsons to search for the elusive Banksy. They may not know much about art, but they know what they like and what they like is a ferry trip on Sydney Harbour.
The top of the Harbour Bridge - a good place to stand in silence for a minute.
It was eleven o’clock on Remembrance Day, November 11th. The flags on the Sydney Harbour Bridge were at half mast. The ferry came to a stop, and the captain came on the PA system to remind us of the reason.
Most of the passengers stood, baseball caps and sunhats doffed. I had a minute for a whispered explanation into the ear of a five year old of why we were thinking of all the soldiers who had been killed in wars, a hundred years ago and yesterday. ‘Are they in heaven now?’ A minute wasn’t long enough.
I thought of my grandfather Arthur Dean, wounded at Pozieres in July 1916, evacuated, patched up, sent back to the front, gassed, evacuated again… He came home, having seen horrors I hope never to see myself, and his survival is the reason I’m here to think about it at all.
Did the sacrifices made by my grandfather and other young men make it possible for us to ride a ferry to an exhibition of witty street art on an island in Sydney Harbour? If so, thanks. We’re trying to make the most of the opportunities.
It's a long tunnel, and the art and music are a potentially scary to a young explorer.
Belgian artist ROA has completed his work now. Can we offer him Australian citizenship? His talent is needed here.
The art of t-shirt art.
There's bound to be one that fits you.
To the Batmobile, Boy Wonder!
Visitors are encouraged to contribute their own art to the Outpost Project. Materials are provided for junk sculpture-making, there is coloured chalk for pavement artists, and we can try 'cuprocking' - sticking coloured plastic cups in wire mesh fences to make patterns and pictures.
Oz according to Banksy.
I suppose Banky is no cleverer than many cartoonists whose work appears in newspapers and calendars on a daily basis – Gary Larsen, Michael Leunig, Peter van Straten, to name but a few. He has been clever in cultivating the mystique of anonymity.
Perhaps it’s also that placing the art on a public wall, rather than in a licensed publication, adds to its cheeky subversiveness.
Outpost Project runs until December 11, 2011. Entry is free.
Great stuff, Richard!
Thanks, Paul. I imagine there are other parts of the world where a project like this would work well and be very popular.
I’ve always wanted to have a t shirt printed with ” Landrights for gay whales”
You get do do such fun things.
I was driving through glorious Tuscany at 11.00am yesterday. I had 3 uncles who fought in WW2. They lived, but 1 was not the same man who went to war. Hopefully one day enough people will want peace to make it happen.
And creating a graphic image to go with the ‘terrestrial opportunities for homosexual cetaceans’ slogan would be an interesting challenge.
We could squeeze peace in there somewhere too, I’m sure.
Hi Richard,
This is Sam from Cardinal Spin, I was wondering if you could send through your contact details, we have some events coming up you may be interested in. Our email is admin@cardinalspin.com.au
Hope to hear from you soon
Cheers
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