Perhaps the most visited and popular event of the recently completed Sydney Festival was THE BEACH. There were no rips, you could not drown nor suffer a sunburn if you attended.
THE BEACH, in fact, was a white coloured ‘pool’ of 1.1 million recyclable polyethylene balls that ebbed and rose up against a sixty metre wide shoreline with no sand to shake out of a towel or out oif your shoes. To complete the theme deck chairs with redundant umbrellas lined the shoreline so that parents, in addition to lifeguards, could watch their children cavorting in this plastic ocean.
What was striking was the multicultural nature of the event with women in saris or burqas plunging without inhibition into the monochromatic balls. The queues to enter were very long and routinely by 3 pm one could no longer gain entrance.
THE BEACH was designed by Snarkitecture, a New York based art and architecture practice. This free happening took place from the 7th to the 29th January at the Cutaway, Barangaroo Reserve.
All images by Ben Apfelbaum (c).