Name of Event: Kaldor Public Art Project 32, Jonathan Jones barrangal dyara (skin and bones)
Date of Event: 17 September–3 October 2016
Venue: Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney
No. of guests: 90,000
Client and/or Event Company: Kaldor Public Art Projects
Type of Event: Public Art Exhibition
Role / Involvement: Soundscape Audio, Site Lighting & Power, Audio Visual for Workshops and Talks
About the Event:
Jonathan Jones presented barrangal dyara (skin and bones), a vast sculptural installation stretching across 20,000 square-metres of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Thousands of handmade white shields marked the outline of The Garden Palace which was built for the Sydney International Show in 1879 and devastatingly burnt to the ground in 1882 along with a huge amount of Aboriginal artefacts and Australian history. The enormously ambitious project was led by John and Bettina Kaldor who engaged 135 new casual staff for the project, comprised of 43 Invigilators, 72 Volunteers, 5 Educators, 15 Installers, and a handful of lovely AV operators ? — making this project their most thematically complex and logistically ambitious project in their 47-year history.
Over 300,000 people visited and 90,000 people engaged with the exhibition, with 8300 people attending 76 talks, performances and events onsite, which involved 180 artists, academics, and thinkers from diverse disciplines.
Innovative have been working with the Kaldor family for over 10 years and this is our 4th major project with them. The Kaldor family are responsible for some of the most ambitious art projects in Australia and have also donated extensive art collections and funds to the Art Gallery of NSW and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Key highlights of event:
Innovative designed and built 8 soundscapes comprising of 24 weatherproof, battery powered, wireless speakers which needed to last a full 12 hours each day without charging. The soundscapes were spread throughout the installation featuring voices of 8 of the different Aboriginal languages from across the south-east of Australia.
For more information, photos, and videos, click on the link and learn more about this amazing project and a very important part of Sydney’s history.
