Get ready to enter Vivid Sydney’s Nautilus Forest, where imagination lights up
PREVIEW: Vivid Sydney’s Nautilus Forest in the Royal Botanic Garden sets the sky alight with pulsating sparkles and ripples of light; an eye-popping alien landscape — all in the blink of an eye — comes to life.
Central Sydney
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A KALEIDOSCOPE of colours, transporting the viewer to the bottom of the ocean, a tranquil forest and an eye-popping alien landscape — all in the blink of an eye — came to life on Monday morning.
Sydney Central was given a sneak peak at Vivid Sydney’s Nautilus Forest as it lit up the sky before the first burst of sunshine hit the entrance to the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, overlooking both the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
Standing in the branches of the Nautilus Forest were Richard Neville and Adrienn Lord from Leichhardt-based lighting design and production company Mandylights.
The forest has bursts of serene ocean blues and forest greens juxtaposed against bright pinks and reds that set the sky alight with pulsating sparkles and ripples of light.
“It has an oceanic theme but it is organic,” Lord said, looking up at the lights climbing up and dancing along the branches of the Nautilus Forest.
“It is part coral, part alien and part floral.”
Lord said the light installation was designed to be immersive, to capture the imagination, and to be a transformative experience that switched between playful to excited and tranquil.
He said each of the 24 trees stand up to 4.5m tall; together merging into a magical forest that entices visitors to enter.
The Nautilus Forest is just one of the Botanic Garden Vivid Sydney light installations that also include the giant, shimmering glowing discs of Midnight Moon and The Bloom, a huge metallic flower with petals adorned with mirrors — another one of Mandylight’s five Vivid Sydney installations.
There is also He’e nalu, inspired by the art of surfing, and Parrot Party, with a cheerful flock of birds that break into song and radiate colourful light when admirers stop.
Curator of Light for Vivid Sydney, Anthony Bastic said: “Exotic, beautiful, intriguing and downright strange works of lights will take visitors on an interactive adventure through a fantasy world as the garden bursts into life with brilliant colour and incredible creations and creatures, from a majestic midnight sun to a busily building bowerbird”.
Tourism Minister Adam Marshall said visitors to the garden should expect the unexpected.
“The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney will be transformed into a brilliant nocturnal landscape that reveals new wonders created by artists, and inspired by nature, at every twist and turn,” he said.
“The next generation of design minds will make their mark too, with TAFE NSW students giving the turreted facade of Government House Sydney a mesmerising makeover for the festival.”