Culture

Everyone At Vivid Sydney Is Having A Very Good Time Inside This Giant Vagina

Someone, with a straight face, just described the crowds inside as "vibrating".

by Meg Watson  28 May 2016

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Sydney’s Vivid festival kicked off this weekend ushering in a month-long stretch of gigs, talks and incessant Instagrams of lights from literally every person in the city.

Every. Person.

We’ve turned on the lights. #VividSydney

A photo posted by Mike Baird (@mikebairdmp) on

With roads closed to help cope with the crowds, thousands of people poured into the CBD to see the huge array of buildings and installations light up. The sails of the Opera House were covered exclusively in the work of Indigenous artists for the first time in the festival’s eight-year history. A giant blue-tongued lizard climbed across Customs House telling a “hidden story of Sydney” that looked a lot like a Nintendo game. Interactive public installations had confused middle-aged people hugging trees and others screaming “I love you” at one another in front of a crowd of strangers.

The highlight of the festival, however, may be something slightly more simple. Filling the gap between the edge of Circular Quay and the Botanic Gardens (incidentally celebrating its 200th anniversary with no shortage of romantic lighting), is an enormous, resolute, 70m-deep vagina.

If we’re going by the official description, this is actually Cathedral of Light: a work created by Australian design house Mandylights with the contributions of artists from Germany and the UK. According to the Vivid Sydney website, it “draws physical inspiration from traditional arched windows, typically found in historic churches”.

This shape is created through thousands of small flower-shaped fairy lights strung along a thin metal structure crafted into an archway. In a way, each light is intended to represent an individual — though they may appear small, when they join their powers together they can create something beautiful.

“The installation evokes feelings of attraction, warmth, inclusion and a sense of journey with its distinctive shape, attractive tone and walk-through nature,” the site reads. But still…

Siri, translate: “distinctive shape”.

Please know: I make this comparison with love. I’m a big fan of vaginas. I have one — as many of us do. And, if you don’t, you very likely still owe your life to one. It’s about time we showed our appreciation.

Both art and architecture have made varied attempts at championing this cause over the years. There’s the Great Wall Of Vagina — UK artist Jamie McCartney’s decade-long mission to plaster cast every vulva in the world. There’s an urban myth that the Crain Communications building in Chicago was designed with a slit down one side as a reaction against an overwhelmingly phallic skyline. And, though she denied any intention, a great number of sports stadiums designed by architect Zaha Hadid (who tragically died of a heart attack earlier this year) certainly didn’t look unlike all-consuming vulva wandering the earth to devour mankind whole.

In the early 1960s, French artist Niki de Saint Phalle even encouraged gallery patrons to walk through a giant archway, admittedly more obviously placed between two women’s legs. The work’s name? Hon-en katedral. Its direct translation? “She’s a cathedral”.

Weirdly, no one seems to have noticed its modern-day equivalent.

Romantic selfie ?? #vividsydney #lovesydney #rbgsydney   A photo posted by Miffymsnuffy (@miffymsnuffy) on

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#touristshot #vividsydney

A photo posted by Emilia Zofia (@emiliamatuszkiewicz) on

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✨ #Australia #VividSydney #travel   A photo posted by Hannah Posnett (@hmposnett) on

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#vividsydney #vividsydney2016   A photo posted by Jujulily (@jujulily27) on

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See ya soon Sydney! Vivid goals. #sydney #cathedraloflights #vividsydney #bucketlist   A photo posted by Hayley Kloda (@hayley2204) on

To be fair, one of those posts described the crowds inside the work as “vibrating”. I refuse to accept that as being a coincidence.

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The writer of this post has travelled to Sydney as a guest of Destination NSW. Check back on Junkee later for recaps of the first Vivid Ideas talks from Margaret Zhang and House of Cards showrunner Beau Willimon.