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Staring at the 23-metre sculptures bobbing on the waterfront of Watermans Cove at Barangaroo South, artist Mikala Dwyer recalls the moment she began creating the structures 14 years ago.
“I was in my studio ... and I had a fishbowl with some fishing floats sitting in it,” Dwyer says. “My engineer friend came in and took one look at it and said, ‘Yeah, we can make that’, and that was the beginning of a wonderful adventure.”
The five sculptures, titled Monuments for Fishes, are crafted from carbon fibre, fibreglass and steel – the same materials used for yachts. Each one stands vertically and sways with the tides, winds and currents.
Having enlisted the help of more than 100 specialists – including engineers, shipwrights, spray-painters, steel welders and machinists – and travelling north from Nowra with the sculptures over a few months, Dwyer has begun to see the artwork as a group of living beings.
“I was thinking of them as a group of beings in a way that they look precarious … they’re so tall and spindly, and they float and they wobble,” she says, adding that despite their fragile appearance, the structures are strong and durable.
“Each one was shaped so it would be different … [and] has its own character, but they’re really designed to be inseparable as a group.”
Dwyer says that behind the colourful sculptures is a lot of engineering. In addition to the length of each structure, there is a 15-metre pylon driven through the clay and sandstone below the ocean floor, followed by 15 metres rising through the water where it connects to the artwork that sits on the surface.
Jeremy Sparks, founder of Event Engineering, has helped steer the project alongside Dwyer since 2013. He says the team used 3D drawings of the Barangaroo South precinct to determine the most immersive vantage points for the artwork.
“This was crucial to optimise its public view in the cove with low and high tides, winter and summer light,” Sparks says, adding that the next step was choosing the best materials. “Fibreglass [was the] clear marine environmental winner, with lifeguard vessels in the United States still in service 100 years after manufacture.”
The new public artwork – one of the largest floating and kinetic artworks in the world – was commissioned by Lendlease together with Infrastructure NSW for Barangaroo’s public and cultural art plan. It is the fifth permanent artwork so far.
Dwyer says her artwork, which lights up at night, pays homage to the Indigenous women who fished along the cove well before colonisation.
“Those amazing fisherwomen from this area used to go and fish at night on these really little delicate boats,” she says.
