Media release
Date: Monday 10 October, 2011
COCKATOO ISLAND HOSTING 150 OF WORLD’S
LEADING STREET ARTISTS AND COLLECTIVES
Outpost Project, an inaugural street art festival that will be the largest in the southern hemisphere,
has today announced its headline works by artists and collectives from around the world.
More than 150 artists and collectives will transform Cockatoo Island between 4 November and
11 December, with static and live street art creations including aerosol art, stencilling, paste-ups,
stickers, cup-rocking, sculpture and installations.
Curated by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust’s programming team and aMBUSH Gallery, the
artist line up includes work by street artist Banksy as part of the Oi You! Collection, being seen in
Australia for the first time. International street artists Anthony Lister, Ethos, Kid Zoom, DMOTE
and ROA will be in Sydney to create new work on Cockatoo Island for Outpost.
“Outpost Project brings together the most celebrated local and international street artists for a
vibrant festival that will transform Cockatoo Island,” said Geoff Bailey, Executive Director of the
Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.
“Visitors can expect a packed program of exhibitions spanning a wide range of street art styles
along with live art performances, installations and large-scale murals created on the island,” said
Mr Bailey.
New York-based, Perth-born artist Kid Zoom will return home to create one of the highlight works
of the festival. The large-scale new work will be unveiled on the opening night and touch on
themes of homecoming and the artist’s suburban upbringing in Australia.
Brazilian artist Ethos and Belgian artist ROA will create major new works onto walls on the
eastern edge of Cockatoo Island. ROA, known for his giant murals of animals, is expected to
draw inspiration from Sydney’s local wildlife.
Four giant inflatable sculptures by New York-based, Brisbane-born artist Anthony Lister will be
placed around the island and hung from the eaves of buildings. Lister will paint directly onto the
large-scale inflatables onsite.
Concrete sculptures of household items such as armchairs and washing machines created by
Sydney artist Will Coles will pop up across the island, including a giant concrete fish-shaped
soy sauce container that will be hoisted from a crane and hung against the backdrop of Sydney
Harbour.
Melbourne-based street art collective Everfresh Studio will create a large-scale collaborative
mural measuring 24 by 3.6 metres during the first week of the festival. Everfresh Studio members
including Phibs, Meggs, Makatron, RONE, REKA and PRIZM will paint and attach paste-ups
and stickers onto an oversized ‘No Trespassing’ sign attached to a cliff wall.
During the festival’s first weekend, Sydney-based artist Sprinkles and Gold Coast artist SHIDA
will paint two large-scale billboards live on Cockatoo Island. The works will form part of Project
Ugly, a series of 22 billboards curated by Sydney artist EARS (Daniel O’Toole), whose work is
also featured.
Sydney-based artist Ben Frost has curated Pastemodernism 3, a one-room exhibition featuring
the work of more than 100 local and international street artists that will be the largest paste-up
group show ever seen in Australia.
More than 2000 original T-shirts inspired by street culture will be hung as part of an exhibition
curated by Eddie Zammit, founder of the world’s only T-shirt magazine. Nex-T will be the most
comprehensive exhibition ever presented of T-shirts inspired by street culture.
The May Lane Street Art Project, an exhibition of large-scale street art created at May Lane in
Sydney’s St Peters, will be presented in an industrial space on Cockatoo Island. The exhibition is
presented by Bathurst Regional Gallery as part of a national tour and documents a range of street
art styles including aerosol art, paste-ups and stencilling.
The work of stencil artists will also be displayed as part of an exhibition of the finalists and
winning entrants to the 2011 Australian Stencil Art Prize.
The evolution of street art - a global art movement established in New York in the 1970s - will be
portrayed in the Foundations exhibition. Featuring the work of at least two generations of street
artists, Foundations offers insights into the development of the genre.
The grand final of Skateboarding Australia’s 2011 Pro/Am tour will be hosted on Outpost Project’s
closing weekend (10 and 11 December) and will see the country’s most talented skaters compete
amongst the street art works.
A vibrant program of live music, workshops and artist performances will be announced next
month. Outpost Project website: http://outpost.cockatooisland.gov.au/
For further information please contact Kym Druitt at eckfactor
on (02) 8570 5511 or 0418 272 018 or
Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour is open to the public daily, offering major events, exhibitions, venue hire, accommodation, tours and
business tenancy. It is one of the magnificent sites managed by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, a self funding agency created by the
Australian Government to protect and improve public access to former defence and Commonwealth sites around Sydney Harbour. Other
public spaces and parklands include: Snapper Island in Sydney Harbour, Woolwich Dock and Parklands, HMAS Platypus in Neutral Bay,
Headland Park and Chowder Bay in Mosman, North Head Sanctuary in Manly, Marine Biological Station in Watsons Bay and Macquarie
Lightstation in Vaucluse. www.cockatooisland.gov.au