RAINBOW Light Mural

University of Sydney

Situated on the Footbridge Gallery’s Dash Wall in the university’s Camperdown campus, the mural celebrates the 45 years of Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras by animating the number “45”. 

The light installation is inspired by the rainbow font “Gilbert,” originally designed by Hayato Yamasaki after the late Gilbert Baker (1951-2017), the gay right’s activist and creator of the rainbow flag. 

The artwork will open on 17 February and be illuminated every night until 20 March 2023. Best seen at twilight, it is a family-friendly exhibition with music programmed on an outside sound stage from 19:00-21:00 each night during the Sydney WorldPride festival.  

The artwork coincides with the inaugural Hunt Simes Institute in Sexuality Studies (HISS), which is named in memory of lexographer Gary Simes, a Sydney alumni who died in 2017, leaving a generous bequest, and his collection of sexology books, to the University of Sydney.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
An render of what an installation with multi-coloured neon bars lit up to form "45" might look like in the dark against a brick wall

Acknowledgement of country

Sydney WorldPride will take place on the lands of the Gadigal, Cammeraygal, Bidjigal, Darug, Dharawal people who are the Traditional Custodians of the Sydney Basin.

We pay our Respects to their Elders past and present. Always was Always will be Aboriginal Land.

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people come from many different clans and communities across Australia & in 2023 will come together as one, to celebrate with our global LGBTQIA+ community.