Vivid Sydney is in town and no one in
Sydney should miss it! Well it’s on for almost a whole month and attracts an
ocean of tourists, so unless you live under a rock, chances are slim that a Sydneysider
would not know about it.
We decided to go on a weekday after work
thinking the crowd would be less and queues smaller, and as it turned out, it was
quite a smart move indeed! Well, the place was definitely not deserted but at
least we did not have to elbow people and jostle for space as we made our way
from one installation to another!
Our plan to see Vivid Sydney consisted of
two parts. We decided to head to the smaller harbour-side installations first,
as we had reservations for a Vivid
Sydney cruise later in the evening. There were many Vivid cruise deals available and we decided to go for a Vivid dinner cruise,as it would save us the time of having dinner
later.
We headed straight to ‘Eyes on the Harbour’
as that was one of the most talked-about Vivid Sydney installations where a smart
camera scans your face and then projects it onto a big screen above Darling
Harbour. You can select filters like you do on your phone to decide your final
look. As cheesy as it was, we all took great pleasure in seeing our faces light
up Darling Harbour! Next on the itinerary was to head to the Royal Botanical
Garden to see ‘Synthesis’, which portrayed how a tree sustains itself giving
and taking from Earth. It looked like one of the trees in Avatar, glowing in
many colours.
‘Sydney’s Hidden Stories’ was also an
interesting exhibit that primarily holds great appeal for
children, but that didn’t stop us adults from dropping our jaws in amazement
once in a while. It featured the exploits of a lizard leading you through a fairytale
land of witches, gnomes and other creatures. ‘The Matter of Painting’ used the
Museum of Contemporary Art building as its canvas to project images onto its
walls. We couldn’t get tickets to go for ‘Drone 100’, a synchronised
performance to music by hundred drones over Sydney Harbour. That would have
been a visual treat, but sadly had to give it a miss.
By then, it was time for our Vivid Sydney special dinner cruise out on the
harbour. A Vivid cruise
on Sydney Harbour is
a great way to get good views of the Opera House and see ‘Lighting the Sails’.
The famous sails of the Opera House transformedinto an animated canvas of
Australian indigenous art, the theme for this year. The Harbour Bridge, another
icon of the city was outdone by the Opera House but still put up a decent show
with the pylons changing colours of many hues. The food and drinks aboard the Vivid dinner cruise were
perfect accompaniments for the evening, further sweetening the experience.
The final place to check in before calling
it quits to our Vivid day was the ‘Memory frame’, a giant photo frame set against
the backdrop of Sydney Harbour. We got our pictures clicked, souvenirs to keep forever
to remember this day by, in case our memory ever failed us. From harbour
installations to the Vivid
dinner cruise to the Opera House, Vivid Sydney 2016 has lived up to
expectations. Can’t wait to see what the next edition has in store!