Sydney Opera House celebrates work of late artist with a kiss of light

The work of artist David McDiarmid will illuminate the Sydney Opera House sails during Vivid Sydney, 30 years after the activist’s death from an AIDS-related illness.

The seven-minute projection, Kiss of Light, will celebrate McDiarmid’s vibrant artistic practice, heralded as a declaration of identity, love and protest.

Coming to Vivid: David McDiarmid’s Kiss of Light. Credit: Sydney Opera House

McDiarmid’s executor and co-curator, Dr Sally Gray, said she had wanted her friend’s work to live on beyond his death in 1995, aged 42.

“I’ve always wanted David’s work to be prominently shown in Sydney, the city in which he evolved his unique fusion of queer political activism and aesthetic sensibility, and Kiss of Light is a spectacular realisation of this desire,” Gray said.

Hobart-born McDiarmid’s work traversed art, craft, fashion, music, gay liberation and identity politics, popular culture and community engagement.

In 1972, McDiarmid became the first person in Australia to be arrested at a gay rights protest, while demonstrating outside ABC studios in Sydney in response to management’s decision to cancel a news segment on gay rights.

He was also one of the 78ers, the name given to the participants of the first Sydney Mardi Gras Parade in 1978.

Vivid’s director Gill Minervini encountered McDiarmid when she was appointed the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras’ first festival director.

“Having worked with David and being witness to his incredible artistry first hand, this year’s Lighting of the Sails is extra special,” she said. “Although at first glance David’s story might seem tragic, we feel Kiss of Light will inspire hope and positivity.”

Australian artist David McDiarmid in 1986.Credit: SMH

Last year, the Opera House sails were wrapped in swaths of Julia Gutman’s textural work retelling Ovid’s myth of Narcissus. In 2023, Vivid celebrated John Olsen and his six-decade-long career and fascination with Australia’s natural landscape.

This year’s animation by Vandal Studios is inspired by works created by McDiarmid in the 1980s and 1990s and features his unique signature aesthetic of vibrant technicolour markings, swirling fabrics and prism forms. During this period, he worked with other artists and designers including Peter Tully, Linda Jackson and Jenny Kee.

The work will be soundtracked by Australian electronic duo Stereogamous, a collaboration between music producers, sound stylists and activists, Paul Mac and Jonny Seymour.

Other highlights of the festival’s 15th year, which runs from May 23 to June 14, include an in-conversation event with lifestyle entrepreneur Martha Stewart.

Festival organisers have also dispensed with major ticketed events this year from private sponsors and, on advice from NSW Police and Transport for NSW, will not repeat their drone shows that caused a potentially dangerous crowd crush.

Instead, Vivid is expanding its free illuminations to include the Museum of Sydney, Barangaroo Metro, and the Luna Park big wheel. Lights will return to Martin Place for the first time since 2018.

Across from the Opera House at Circular Quay, Archibald Prize winner Vincent Namatjira’s work King Dingo will be projected onto the facade of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

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