A Bird's Eye View of the Best of the Cockatoo Island Biennale Exhibition

In our very humble opinion, you should be heading to all 7 locations of the 21st Sydney Biennale; but if you’ve only got time for one, it’s gotta be Cockatoo Island.

19 of the 70 total artists exhibiting at this year’s Biennale are putting their works up at Cockatoo Island, and it’s going to be bloody beautiful. To start with, you’ve got Ai Wei Wei, the most famous living Chinese artist displaying his humongous boat filled with oversized people, made from the same stuff that takes refugees across the Aegean from Turkey to Greece. It’s called The Law of the Journey, 2017, and it’s mad.

Ai Wei Wei's exhibit at this years Sydney Biennale — Image Credit: Biennale of Sydney

Then we’ve got Sydney-based artist Yasmin Smith whose exhibition is completely site-specific and therefore made from materials entirely found in Cockatoo Island. She’s a ceramic artist and not only has she made her own display, but in the process has built an entire functioning studio with a kiln and an outdoor salt farm – so that the visiting public can produce their own clay vessels.

Yasmin Smith Clay Exhibit — Photo Credit: Sydney Biennale

The one I’m keenest to see, however, has got to be Diabethanol, 2018, by Julian Abraham ‘Togar’. In it, Julian has created a fictional company called “Diabethanol” which works to turn diabetic urine into bioethanol; fuel for cars. While this is a pretty funny concept, the work itself manages to address some serious issues such as urbanisation and overpopulation, dwindling energy resources, and the worldwide rise in diabetes. I don’t know about you, but it had me at this image:

Julian Abraham 'Togar' Diabethanol Artwork — Image Credit: Sydney Biennale

The entire exhibition is definitely going to be worth the ferry ride over. Exhibition hours will run daily from 10am-5pm on Cockatoo Island, from the 16th of March to the 11th of June, 2018. It’s an easy day trip via the F8 Ferry from Circular Quay, but you can also stay onsite if you think you need more than one day to soak in all that sweet, sweet artistic labour.

It’s going to be running for a while, so if you’ve got time you should check out the other artwork on display at the Sydney Opera House, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Carriageworks, Artspace, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and the 4A Centre of Contemporary Asian Art.

The whole event is set to be amazing, and it means your calendar from March til June is gonna be so full of cultural events you’ll feel way smarter and way more engaged in the cultural zeitgeist than all the other plebs. You can catch the full details for the entire event here.