Chance of Sunny Spells

Vivid is a festival of lights every May/June, and shockingly we've lived here nearly six years, and never gone to Vivid. It's totally free but we usually see the Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House and other sights lit up for a few weeks during the festival without purposely going to it. Vivid transforms Sydney into a wonderland of 'light art' sculptures, innovative installations and grand-scale projections so we had to take a look.

First up, exploring Martin Place. There's a head where you can have your face appear on the front. But my favourite piece of the festival was this tower that had a tree growing on it - perfectly matched to the structure with birds flying by, little critters climbing, blossoms and then some laser vines/flowers/butterflies/dragonflies/bugs climbing up the tower next to it.

Next we walked to Circular Quay where the Light Walk started at the Opera House and worked it's way around Circular Quay to the Harbour Bridge and then back around the water to Darling Harbour. The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) had a great light shows on its harbour side.

Bangarra Dance Theatre has a projection onto the sandstone blocks of the Sydney Harbour Bridge southern pylon. The spirit of Patyegarang is a 3-minute large-scale video commemorating the encounter of this... young Eora woman and First Fleet astronomer Lieutenant William Dawes. This is the first Indigenous contribution to the Vivid Light Walk as Bangarra awakens Patyegarang’s spirit on her land, where she lived over 200 years ago. And I know about it because I manage our sponsorship of Bangarra and am very excited to see Patyegarang!

Just a few of the designs projected on the Custom House.

We finally made it into the madness in front of the MCA. It was really crowded with lots of interactive exhibits that the kids seemed to like. We paused to check out a few more views of the Opera House.