One Parramatta Square

Western Sydney University is immensely excited to contribute this work for the Rainbow City project for the 2023 Sydney WorldPride. WSU has always been supportive of the LGBTQI+ community, and our students and staff within the community, and we see this artwork as an opportunity to continue to express that support. Engaged by WSU, Sydney-based queer artist, Nadia Odlum has produced ‘Queer Wanderings’ as the University’s submission for Rainbow City.

From the artist:

“Queer Wanderings expresses the intimacy and entanglement of queer urban lives. In her book ‘Queer Phenomenology’ philosopher Sara Ahmed describes the sense of disorientation that results from seeing the world differently. In response to this, queer people in urban space orient toward each other. Commonalities of experience and desire lead to interweaving paths, which create geographies of shared spaces and networked relations.

As we emerged from Covid-19 lockdown, and came back to the city streets, I experienced a re-meeting of many queer kin and connections. In the return of urban social life, chance meetings resumed – at the coffee shop, on the dance floor, at the protest. I discovered and created new communities of lovers and friends. The city was overlaid once more with swirling links of personal connection and care.

The drawing series ‘Queer Wanderings’ emerged from this experience. Through links of overlapping arrows, these works on paper map my personal experiences of queer spatiality. In the commission for Western Sydney University, these small drawings have been expanded to a large scale, engaging with a broader experience of queer connection in urban space.”

Odlum’s work can also be seen throughout Parramatta Square as a commission for Rainbow City by Parramatta City Council.