As we move into holiday mode, my thoughts turn to long, lazy afternoons enjoying the rich, inviting, creativity of a thriving bike community. I was nostalgic for a local event something along the lines of Bespoke City. Bespoke City was a super special, one-night-only art and design event held in Sydney some years back. A wonderful reminder of what can be achieved when creative minds come together. For those who missed it, this post explains the event. Here’s to hoping for more bespoke events like this! Enjoy. NG.
The Bespoke City event was put on to celebrate a new generation of designers, makers, technologists and innovators who had teamed up with artists to re-imagine Sydney’s streets from the perspective of the cyclist.
Brilliant! There should be more city events like this!
The Bespoke City festival included a series of bike-inspired installations, projections, interactive artworks, unique sculptures, videos, kinetic artworks, demonstrations, and stalls. Curated by Laura Fisher and Sabrina Sokalik, Bespoke City invited audiences to reimagine Sydney’s urban environment.
It was held in a new community space in the heart of Oxford Street. This was the first time the event had ‘spilled out into the streets’ from the UNSW Art & Design Courtyard and Galleries.
Bicycles were central to all the artworks.
Bikes were used to generate light, colour, sound and energy, while other artworks used them as a metaphor for the city itself – reminding us that urban spaces can be deconstructed and remade and that we are all implicated in the politics of public space.
A key aim of the event was to spotlight the bicycle as a humble but brilliant piece of technology, and to share a vision of the city as open to being hacked, remapped and remade.
Bespoke City was part of UNSW Galleries’ First Fridays program, in which the Galleries stayed open late on the first Friday of each month to host lively events engaging in contemporary art and culture.
What a great idea! More, please!
Laura Fisher said Bespoke City appealed to everyone: “This is one for the makers, the pedalers and the whole family.”
Some of the more than 20 Bespoke City artworks, workshops and installations, included:
- Pedal powered light mural – Climb on and peel back the layers of the city. See Sydney in flux as your pedalling efforts produce variations in light, colour and space. Artists: Jonathon Bolitho, Jeong Greaves, Jobe Williams, Mackenzie Nix.
- Autonomous painting machine – A robot-painter that tracks human movements to create curious images, prompting viewers to think about how machine intelligence is influencing our lives. Artist: Jeffrey Wood
- Bicycles that make music – Create a slow groove or some fast electronic beats as you collaborate with other riders to fill the campus with a unique and evolving sound piece. Artists: Milkcrate Events.
- Microbiology in the urban wild – Examine the city at the molecular level using a bike-powered laboratory created by the first Citizen Scientist molecular biology lab. Artists: BioFoundry
- A virtual ride from Paddington to Rozelle – ‘Veloscape’ is an immersive video work in which your pedalling takes you on a traverse of the city. Artists: Volker Kuchelmeister and Laura Fisher
- Giant data visualisation – Watch the ebb and flow of rider movements around Sydney, with a specially commissioned work inspired by the City’s cycling data. Artist: Hanley Weng & Xavier Ho.
There were also lots of other things to do, like get a free bicycle tune-up, join the guerrilla knitters, make some custom reflective gear or get some food from one of the Cargo Bike businesses and pop up stalls.
Yes – a wonderful event that ticks so many boxes: artistic, fun, high community engagement, questioning urban design and mobility, bike-focused, collaborative, free, public event…(*sigh*).
I’d love to see more events like this during the holidays.
Ti wouldn’t be too much of a stretch given that most major cities already have some kind of public, night-time bike events like Ride the Night Brisbane or some kind of innovative bike infrastructure like the Starry Night Bike Path.
So let’s showcase more art and design collaborative artworks on two wheels!
This post uses content originally posted by Laura Fisher for UNSW Newsroom and UNSW Galleries.