Esme Timbery, “Badu Gili: Healing Spirit” 2024, Sydney Opera House, Courtesy the Artist and family, Photo Daniel Boud
Watch the Sydney Opera House’s sails illuminate with Badu Gili: Healing Spirit, a new projection celebrating the work and stories of local and international First Nations artists, created in collaboration between the Opera House, Biennale of Sydney and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.
Badu Gili – meaning ‘water light’ in the language of the traditional owners of Bennelong Point, the Gadigal – is a free daily experience that explores First Nations stories in a spectacular six-minute projection on the Opera House’s eastern Bennelong sails.
Badu Gili: Healing Spirit displays the works of celebrated First Nations artists, the late Bidjigal elder Esme Timbery and two of her children, Marilyn Russelland Steven Russell, and artist Joseca Mokahesi Yanomami of the Yanomami people.
As a tribute to the life and work of their mother, the chapter created by Marilyn Russell and Steven Russell is set against the backdrop of the ocean and within the universe of Esme’s art. Featuring delicate shellwork and prints representing the enduring passage of artistic practice across generations, the projection explores the deep spiritual connection between a mother, her family and their Country.
Transitioning to the forests and rivers of the Yanomami, Joseca Mokahesi Yanomami’s chapter depicts a shamanic curing ceremony, a ritual performed when community members fall ill. Illuminating the relationship between the metaphysical and natural worlds, good spirits are called upon to ward off bad. Offering a glimpse into Yanomami cosmology, Joseca Mokahesi Yanomami brings the Amazon alive with butterflies, jaguars and the songs of his people.
Screenings are every night from sunset, 9pm, 9.30pm, 10pm and 10.30pm unless otherwise advised.
SOURCES: Sydney Opera House and Biennale of Sydney.