The site of this work, Canopy, has a shared history, but there are three constants that have always been here: the land the artwork is on, the Wangal and Gadigal clans that care for this country, and the night sky above us.
The night sky is found at the Pier St Underpass in Darling Harbour, Sydney. It evokes primal ideas of creation, dreaming, wonder and home. But most importantly, it holds stories about our place in the universe. These stories unite us all and when we look up, we are reminded of the many narratives that live up there, connecting us to people and place.
Jacob Nash has created an experience for everyone to stand inside the night sky and think both about the stories we know, and also to create our own new narratives when we look up.
Nash is an urban Aboriginal Artist; his Mother’s country is Daly River and he has been living on Gadigal land for the last 20 years. In this work he is exploring his personal response to standing on this country and looking up at the night sky, imagining what it may have looked and felt like on the evening of the 28th April 1770, before Captain Cook landed on these shores. 2020 marks the 250th year since that moment, and with that in mind Nash wants this work to celebrate what is above us, what will always be above us, and to think as much about our future as Australians as it does about the past.