Amanda curated the permanent public artwork, Delicate Balance, by Robyn Backen in the international award winning Ballast Point Park by McGregor Coxall Landscape Architects for the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority / NSW State Government. 

Highly integrated into the landscape architecture, the artwork is a minimal, participatory work about balance, ecology and the littoral as a conceptual and geographical phenomena. Over four meters high, the heavy concrete structure is impressively cantilevered over the waters' edge. As a site for ballast for ships leaving the colony to return to England, Ballast Point was also a Caltex oil repository. The artwork references the balancing act of ships on the high seas, and the site’s precarious relationship to the environment due to the industrial heritage. The large entranceway provides a space to inhabit, enhancing an aural and visual appreciation of one's surroundings viewed through cut-outs in the concrete walls and a grated floor over harbour waters below. Designed almost entirely to activate the senses - sight, smell, sound and touch - it was one of the first truly engaging public artworks to be installed along Sydney Harbour.

Images: Robyn Backen and Ian Hobbs