You are Here | Parramatta Aquatic Centre 2023

A four-metre-high monolith of layered, recycled rusting steel looks to have been almost torn in two then dislocated as if cleaved by immense forces of nature. From a slender base, the crack widens and fissures as it moves vertically through a geology of sedimentary layers representing deep time. From the front, the torn edges describe the shape of the Parramatta River from source to sea. The giant textured slabs are tilted back and forth like the shifting tectonic plates that reshaped the eastern seaboard 60 million years ago. Moving around the sculpture, the space between these forms shifts, alluding to the fluidity of ecological change - from daily tidal shifts to vast movements in geology and climate.

Fine atomising mist billowing around the base of the sculpture alludes to the primordial - the time of the river stretching back hundreds of millions of years when it coursed through and carved out geologies shifted by immense geomorphic forces. Borrowing a phrase commonly seen on maps in tourist information kiosks, the title of the sculpture, ‘You are Here’, subtly invites deeper contemplation about where we are at this moment in history and our place in and effect on the natural world.

Thank you to Joel Hamilton Foster, City of Parramatta for capturing the making of this project