DC TIMEOUT: JANUARY
What is going on?
The Sydney Festival 2024 is on now! Check out some of the events that are on out and about across Sydney until January 28.
Most events have free entry, our team have already attended some and highly recommend them. Head to the Sydney Festival website for more information and more events.
Earth, Sea and Sky: Australian Contemporary Photography
Until 28th January
Earth, Sea and Sky presents an exhibition of leading Australian artists and photographers pushing the boundaries in form and matter as they meditate on our relationship with the environment. The collection explores the human fascination with undulating waterways and ocean scapes, our relationship with flora and fauna of country, cloud formations and sky colours, and the grinding effects of climate change on our world.
Location: Bondi Pavilion
Sydney Symphony Under the Stars
20th January
The starlit summer concert you love is back with a soaring new program to lift this park picnic into the stratosphere. Enjoy original works featuring the didgeridoo magic of William Barton, joined by Aunty Delmae Barton and Véronique Serret, and the transportive sitar playing of Anoushka Shankar. All in collaboration with Sydney Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Benjamin Northey, who will bring it home with traditional classics and a big sparkly bang.
Location: The Crescent, Parramatta Park
House of Fast Fashun
20 - 21st January
From Melbourne’s Fast Fashun art collective comes a hands-on haute couture event for the 21st century, with a runway show every hour.
Discover your inner designer (and contemplate ways to reduce the colossal amounts of waste produced by the wear-it-once/throw-it-out fashion garment industry) in a workshop-performance hybrid in which you are invited to create the unique fashion statement of your dreams from old clothes and textile waste. Artists will be on hand to help you realise your creation with demonstrations, assistance and nimble thimbles. Participants of all ages are welcome, and no previous fashion experience is necessary. If you can operate a safety pin, you’re halfway there.
Participants are encouraged to showcase their creation. A runway show will happen every hour on the hour. Music. An audience. This is your time to shine.
Location: Tumbalong Park
Hi Vis
Until 28th January
Art strangles architecture on a grand scale in Hi-Vis, the sinuous sculpture taking over a Walsh Bay wharf. British sculptor Michael Shaw uses the building like a mould to inform and form the geometry of his vibrant 46-metre-long installation.
Shaw’s work subverts the use of public space – and encourages you to experience the wharf in an entirely new light. High-Vis gives representation and agency to the things that cannot often be seen.
The sculptor has been inspired by the shapes of bee abdomens, lungs, intestines and algae, but Hi-Vis is more fun than functional. Its neon colours cast a luminous glow on the dark wood of the wharf, and after the sun sets, UV lights make the sculpture glow in the dark. If you watch it for long enough, you’ll notice it “breathes”.
Shaw specialises in site-specific one-of-a-kind installations, which have wound their way around international arts festivals, galleries and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Hi-Vis was created specifically for Sydney Festival – so your only chance to see it will be this January.
Location: Moonshine Bar Walsh Bay Arts Precinct
Banyan Nights at Seymour Centre
Until 21st January
Spend your humid summer evenings basking under the big trees of the Seymour Centre courtyard with Banyan Nights. Bringing the look and feel of a Southeast Asian market to the courtyard, Banyan Nights is a lively celebration of Cambodia and its rich and artistic culture.
Tuck into traditional Cambodian, Indonesian, Malay and First Nations food and join us for free live performances from incredible local artists from Southeast Asian-Australian communities, including Maggie Tra, Rainbow Chan, Dyan Tai and more.
Location: Seymour Centre, Chippendale
