Amanda Sharrad is the public art curator for Atlassian Central, the high profile anchor development designed by New York based SHoP with BVN for Sydney's newest Tech Central precinct. Providing the gateway to this important precinct, Atlassian’s public art must set the bar high. 

Amanda is currently curating a multi million dollar program of permanent public artworks by exceptional Australian and international artists for the development. Her artist brief, developed in collaboration with Dexus, Atlassian and the design teams, is for work that is innovative and extraordinary to reflect Atlassian’s key principals of sustainability, diversity, engagement, innovation and respect for Aboriginal site heritage. Contemporary, meaningful, compelling, unique, relevant and engaging, the public art will transcend the decorative to provide a rich, memorable and extraordinary experience of place, and a distinct offering to Sydney.

Prometheus, by Korean American artist Soo Sunny Park is one of the two public artworks in the Atlassian Central public art program that includes a large scale work by First Nations artist Brook Andrew. Prometheus is inspired by the story of the brother of Atlas (Atlassian’s inspiration), Prometheus. Whilst Atlas held the vault of heaven away from our world below, Prometheus brought the fire of technology and innovation from heaven to earth. According to the artist, “Prometheus crosses the boundary between (heaven and earth), angering the Gods because he passes the fire of knowledge to mortals. The artwork cuts a crystalline figure of a flame – of a living, changing form - evoking the technologies of the precinct and the high-tech materials that constitute the tower above.”

The northern sunlight flowing through large windows of the double height public lobby is part of the artwork, which also consists of dichroic film coated plexiglass tiles in stainless steel mesh twisted into a flame-like form that is suspended high in the void. The mesh resembling quotidian industrial fencing used the world over to divide land, create boundaries and demarcate ownership, is also used to separate people, countries and inhibit the movement of people. The artist takes these negative connotations and transform the material, with the help of nature, into something of ethereal beauty.

Each tiny tile refracts natural light around the room and onto the viewer creating a beautiful immersive field and experience of colour that only exists when we perceive it. Changing with the seasons and time of day, the light flowing through the installation moves with the suns trajectory across our sky, becoming a sun-dial that marks our place in the world and unifies us with nature’s most important sustainable resource and life force. As Sunny states, “it makes us understand how things unnoticed, like light itself, allow us to see and be connected to each other. This is an important theme in all my work”. The light’s play on the tiles enhance the porosity of the sculpture’s already ephemeral flickering form. The artist is interested in what gets through a barrier and the magic that happens when it does because enlightenment and understanding can only happen when barriers come down and we share and exchange our ideas and world views.

As public art curator Amanda continues to work closely with Soo Sunny Park and her team, Dexus/Atlassian and the design teams at SHoP and BVN to drive, facilitate and manage the artwork development through to completion.

Image: Soo Sunny Park & SHoP/BVN