Cuprum Nitor | Kiriah Shead

The civic cultural facility incorporating Australian historic architecture, facilitates an art form that has not been permanently catered for in Australia- a selection of circus arts- trapeze, tightrope and rope dancing. The selection of these art forms has stimulated the idea to introduce a new perspective on performance- revolutionizing the way it is experienced. The facility plays with the notions of continuity and alteration to resemble that found in performance and movement. The island’s original Aboriginal name, “Memel”, means ‘a place from which you can see far’, so the new cultural facility invertly implements this statement. A glowing copper element runs throughout the island making the island distinct and visible from afar. This ethereal tunnel pulsates, coming to life in reactivity to human presence, transporting subjects from everyday life to a paranormal underworld experience. Instead of attempting to compete with the existing cultural facilities in Sydney, the goal was to produce something entirely unlike anything in existence and distinctive, leading to the development of a virtually perpetual performance. From a far distance, the new structure is distinctive as it glows within Sydney Harbour, indicating a new life on Goat Island that is both intriguing and beautiful. From a distant glance, it invites a desire to explore what is within, enticing interest in the facility. The structure, with its performance spaces indistinct from the whole structure, suggests an unending performance, that one’s whole experience on the island is a part of a performance from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave. An iconoclastic way of movement is implemented; the subjects are moved throughout the island, the performance proceeds surrounding them. The structure to implement this reads as one perpetual cycle, facilitating movement throughout the island. Throughout the whole experience there is order, precision and angularity, whilst conversely, the chaos surrounding this order and its subjects appears wild, unbound, effervescent and dynamic. The whole experience of travelling throughout the island is premeditated and planned, the performance is perpetuated throughout the island and is responsive to the positive space created by the public, pursuing you as you move throughout the island. The idea of continuity and alteration resounds throughout the new structure to reflect the way performance behaves. Through having a perpetual performance, the whole experience becomes intertwined; A cyclical event has been created for the public to move through the island. From the beginning of this cycle, new life is brought in (positive space) and perpetuates this cycle; by this means the cycle is always new, dynamic and contemporary.