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.