Mopoke Festival

The Mopoke Festival aimed to transform Sydney into a 24-hour cultural hub in 2023, blending art, light, and public engagement. The challenge was to create artworks that could captivate both day and night audiences, scale within unconventional public spaces, and contribute meaningfully to an already vibrant festival drawing over 100,000 visitors in a single day.

The Mopoke Festival commissioned Sydney Collage Society to create a site-specific artwork that embodies transformation and illumination. The piece was designed to be both striking and immersive, shifting in perception with light and perspective to offer viewers a fresh experience by day and night, whether glimpsed in passing or explored up close.

The centerpiece was a large-scale collage of an owl, symbolising observation, wisdom, and the bridging of day and night. Handmade collage elements were scanned, scaled, printed on lightbox paper, then meticulously re-cut and reassembled. The vibrant interplay of colours and patterns ensures the work reads differently depending on distance and light — providing a glowing spectacle under UV black lights at night, while remaining intricate and detailed by day.

Installed in the overpass window between Sydney Hospital and the Eye Hospital buildings, the work was designed specifically for its architectural context. The piece serves as both a visual landmark and a participatory moment for festival-goers. It engages audiences across multiple scales — the owl offers a watchful presence from afar and a kaleidoscope of details up close — and contributes to the overall festival experience of bridging art and public life.

The collage became a highlight of the Mopoke Festival, which drew over 100,000 visitors, offering an immersive and dynamic visual experience that captured the festival’s energy and imagination. Audiences experienced a playful and contemplative journey through colour, light, and pattern, reinforcing Sydney Collage Society’s role in creating large-scale, site-specific art that transforms public spaces. The work successfully blended artistry, architecture, and public engagement into a single, luminous installation.