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| On my way to work as an Art Educator for the Outpost Project street art festival on Cockatoo Island. |
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The island was once a convict prison, an industrial school for girls and most notably, Australia's biggest shipyard. It was decommissioned in 2007 and is now on UNESCO's World Heritage List. |
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| From November 4 to December 11, 2011 the island hosted nearly 80,000 visitors for the festival. |
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| The industrial setting was the perfect backdrop for displaying street art. |
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| One of Australia's most renowned street artists, Anthony Lister, created a number of giant balloon characters especially for Outpost. One of them can be seen here peaking out from behind the graffiti bus. |
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| In a commentary on society's wasteful habits, Sydney-based artist Will Coles casts ordinary objects out of cement, adorns them with a few choice words and scatters them around like rubbish. |
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| There were lots of fun activities at Outpost, like chalk drawing... |
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| ... and "cuprocking" a street art form where all you need are a few cups and a fence! |
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| My colleague Claire leads a family tour. |
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| Melbourne-based collective Everfresh created this mural onsite. Do you think they're being serious?! |
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| One of my favourite works, this mural by Ben Frost sprang up a few weeks into the festival. Every time I arrived on the island, there was something new to see. |
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| Another one on my list of favourites, this enormous work is by Belgian artist ROA. He likes to paint native species into his murals, so this one features a pile of sleeping Australian animals...zzzzzzz. |
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| The Earth Temple teepee is a collaboration between artists Phibs, Numskull and Beastman. |
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| Volunteer Collin supervises the chalk drawing station. |
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| Another one of my favourites, the cute/creepy character on the side of this building is by Brazilian artist Ethos. |
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| Cockatoo Island is privileged to now have a number of permanent works. The enormous flying girl is by Australian artist Vexta, one of the few female street artists and a leading name on the international scene. |
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| Claire contemplates the meaning of it all... |
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| Families enjoy lunch in the shade amid paste-ups and a work by Sydney-based artist Deb, who creates voluptuous and distinctive female characters. |
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| Visitors enjoy strolling the lane ways. |
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| Many of the artists paid tribute to the island by including Cockatoos in their work. This is yet another favourite! |
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| Many works were housed inside the giant turbine hall. Here, Kid Zoom's site-specific installation features a video depicting his destruction of three Holden Commodores, a symbol of Australian middle-class suburbia. |
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| The Foundations Gallery features graffiti in the classic style, which was born in New York in the 80s. |
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| Paste Modernism features works by dozens of artists, all drawn, painted or digitally printed on paper and pasted up onto the walls of the turbine hall. |
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| The May Lane exhibition features work by Sydney-based artists who got their start painting in the lane of the same name in the St. Peters suburb of Sydney (not far from our house in Camperdown). |
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| The Secret Wars competition pitted two street artists against one another in a live paint-off. The winner was voted by the crowd. |
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| These guys, known as Junky Projects, are made by artist Daniel Lynch. He cobbles together pieces of rubbish and debris, then installs his fabulously funky people all over the streets of Sydney. During Outpost, Cockatoo became home to dozens of Junky Projects. Almost every day I spotted a new one somewhere! |
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| The T-shirt display was a hit with visitors of all ages. |
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| The Ping-Pong Bar features a lovely mural by Tom Civil. |
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| Out on the Eastern Apron, another Anthony Lister balloon character oversees the cafe area. |
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| Seagulls are numerous on Cockatoo Island and since they're nesting, they are quite noisy and aggressive. |
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| Patrice and Amr came for a visit on the last weekend of the festival. |
