Reading the Landscape activates the stormwater harvesting infrastructure at Sydney Park through a series of sculptural interventions that aim to connect the community to urban water cycles. The artworks highlight the invisible or hidden processes that take place in the biofiltration and wetlands systems throughout the park.

Revealing the wetland circulatory system

The wetlands’ circulatory system stores and recirculates the cleansed stormwater throughout the system to maintain water quality and support wetland and habitat health.

A series of interpretive pipe elements playfully celebrate the circulatory nature of the system, exposing the ‘plumbing’ to suggestively reveal the underlying network of pipes connecting the wetlands as a recirculating whole.

A ‘sculptural’ pipe at the head of Wetland 1 releases water pumped from Wetland 5. Drawing attention to the constructed and functioning nature of the wetland system, the interpretive pipe element is ‘revealed’ throughout the system at the Wetland 2/4 connection, the Wetland 4 overflow and at Wetland 5.

Clad in brick or brightly coloured it makes connection to the broader history of the site as a brick pit.

This early idea resulted in the permanent work, Water Falls.