See the whale, sea the dream

An expression of interest was circulated throughout their Sydney headquarters for staff to submit a design for what they’d like to see upon the vacant wall on entry to their workplace. I was enlisted as the artist who’d steer the design process, sampling elements from several selected designs from the finalists selected.

From the onset, we established there needed to be a water element that dominated the overall design given that, the Gadigal Dreaming is Whale. I also wished to reminisce the fact that from that very site, prior to the desecration of the immediate foreshore by way of towering office blocks and hideous apartment buildings, there would have been an uninhibited view of the water.

The design pieced together fluidly and aided by the available technology we were able to achieve a beautifully stylised acknowledgement to the whale, ocean and the Gadigal. Two important features to note. Firstly, the lightbox at mid stairs was my concept in aid of encouraging school students to create postage stamp designs annually as part of their NAIDOC activities. The hypothesis was that winning designs chosen would be made into an A1 poster and displayed within the lightbox as an ongoing feature.

Secondly, the AUSTRAK team deduced that we should acknowledge the famous 1992 Redfern Park speech made by the Hon. Paul Keating. I selected the most apt sample form that speech and added this to the design now featured in the metal ‘waves’ and laser cut / backlit tidily.