In a mostly unremarked spot in the Royal Botanic Garden, close to the waters of Farm Cove, there is a small but poignant monument.
"For Forgotten Australians" reads the title on the modest plinth, referring to the 2004 Senate report into children who suffered in institutional care.
Oasis is a sea of dancing lights in the Royal Botanic Garden.
Photo: Christopher Pearce
"We remember the lonely, the frightened, the lost, the abused – those that never know the joy of a loving family, who suffered too often at the hands of a system meant to provide for their safety and wellbeing," continues the inscription.
When designer James Feng came across the spot he was deeply moved and resolved to shine a light on it – quite literally – with his entry into the competition for Vivid designs.
"The area was quite overgrown and I felt some sort of moral responsibility to design an installation that would revive and activate that part of the gardens," he says.
Advertisement
The result is Oasis, an installation in the twin ponds adjacent to the memorial that Feng created with colleagues Minh Au and Gunjit Kaur.
Six hundred light units on slender, flexible stalks rise above the water creating a sea of dancing light above the surface.
"The inspiration for the piece came from the site," he says. "We always look for something that is very site specific and responds to the scale and the environment rather than fabricating an object and then choosing a location."
The lights bend and sway in the breeze, but the materials are deceptively strong and always return to their upright position – a metaphor, says Feng, for both the fragility and the mental resilience of children.
"We tried to explore the primal conditions of being a child," he says. "On one hand you have the fragility and vulnerability of being young and inexperienced but on the other hand you have a heightened sense of imagination and you are always imagining different worlds of fairytales and adventure."
Comments disabled
Nick Galvin is a journalist with The Sydney Morning Herald
Most Viewed in Entertainment
Morning & Afternoon Newsletter
Delivered Mon–Fri.
