Bibles and Bullets

Installed 2008

Redfern Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Contemporary art Public art

An oversized bronze cast of a a hollow, intricate seed pod. In the background is another oversized seed pod in bronze and aluminium, with ladders and a climbing rope suspended from it.

A crucifix-shaped fountain composed of tall bronze lotus flowers. In the background are several bronze and aluminium oversized seed pod sculptures.

The artwork invites imaginative play through an intuitive playscape, a fountain and water play environment, and a skate park.

Redfern Park

51 Redfern Street

Redfern

Directions and transport

Artist: Fiona Foley

Artwork description

In Bibles and Bullets artist Fiona Foley communicates history with 3 significant artworks in Redfern Park. Several components make up this artwork including an intuitive playscape for young children, a fountain and water play environment, and a skate park for older children.

The various sections stimulate the senses, inviting imaginative play rather than giving prescriptive cues for structured activity. They simultaneously provide sophisticated sculptural additions to the public space, rich in associative and sensual appeal.

The natural forms and seed pods of plants inspired the group of sculptural play elements and the water play environment. The artist gathered reference material from walks throughout the local area and themed the play elements around native flora. Oversized seed pods are scattered among ancient fig trees, and the fig itself played an important part in the diet of Aboriginal people.

“It begins, I think with that act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice …”

– Former prime minister Paul Keating, Redfern Speech, 1992

Intuitive Play is a playspace for young children aged 3 to 7 years. The constructed seed pods include wrinkly nut (cast bronze), mangrove seed (fabricated aluminium frame/cast bronze pod) and yam seeds (fabricated aluminium frame).

Other elements providing play opportunities include spring boat (cast aluminium with hardwood timber platform) and the bright red, three-dimensional, text work Biami (fabricated aluminium), which refers to one of the most important Aboriginal male ancestor creator figures in south-eastern Australia.
Lotus Line is a fountain and water play environment in the form of a crucifix. Cast stainless steel and bronze lotus flowers emerge from the ground, representing the strength of the colonised culture to survive.

Two nearby inscriptions are central to the concept of this work. One inscription includes an extract from the speech delivered by Paul Keating in Redfern Park in 1992. Delivered to a crowd of predominantly Indigenous people, the speech dealt with the challenges faced by Aboriginal people. Although not given a lot of media attention at the time, it became known as the Redfern Speech and is now regarded as one of the greatest Australian speeches. Keating was the first Australian prime minister to publicly acknowledge to Indigenous Australians that European settlers were responsible for the difficulties Australian Aboriginal communities continued to face.

Another nearby inscription commemorates artist Michael Riley (1960–2004) with a text written by Aboriginal curator, writer, artist and activist, Djon Mundine OAM.

Artist

Fiona Foley, a Brisbane-based artist, stands at the forefront of cultural discourse in Australian contemporary art. Her site-specific sculptural installations are satirical, engaging and interactive.

Inscriptions

Inscribed in paving near Lotus Line:

It begins, I think with that act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.

Extract from the Redfern Speech, Year for the World’s Indigenous People
by Paul Keating PM on December 10th 1992
Inscribed in paving near Lotus Line:

Michael Riley
1960-2004
Of the Wiradjuri and Kumilaroi Peoples

“I found that I wanted to tell stories and get stories from Aboriginal people”

Michael was born in 1960 in Dubbo. Aboriginal people of Michael’s generation thrived both in numbers, vocal visibility and artistic achievement. His generation was a line of sophisticated people who fell between, in Michael’s own words, the ‘Trad Ab and the Rad Ab’ but who developed into worldly art practitioners and stylish urbane personalities. His quiet, seemingly aloof demeanor actually belied a deep thinking person of extreme warmth, humour and generosity. Michael’s poignant, insightful frames and landscapes express the universal search for an historic spirituality. Initially there was the ‘dreaming’, but if this is lost, what replaces this guiding core of our lives? The relationship (and attendant issues) to some degree, go beyond questions of indigenity alone. Equally he is loved and missed.

‘Aboriginal spirituality is still there within the land even if the surface has been changed there’s still a sense of beauty and spirituality there’.

Commission

The children’s playground was a key element of the 2008 Redfern Park upgrade.

The brief was to reinvigorate Redfern Park, making it an attractive destination for families by providing inviting and interactive play opportunities.

Artist Fiona Foley was commissioned to create an intuitive playscape.

It provides the Redfern community with an inviting and interactive destination for children and adults alike.

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Bronze cannon painted black on a red base that belonged to the H.M.S. Sirius, flagship of the First Fleet.

Artefacts

closeup detail of golden cherub statue and water trickling out and urn. Bus sign, street and row houses in the background.

Fountains & water features

A stone monument at night. The monument has an ornate structure topped with a dome, with several busts and sculptures adorning its sides. It is lit from within.

Monuments & memorials

Building painted in fluorescent pink, black and blue geometric diamonds, with the words ‘Always was, always will be‘ is incorporated across the frontage

Murals & street art

A fish hook shaped sculpture on the grass with the harbour bridge in the background.

Sculptures

Bibles and Bullets

Artwork description

Intuitive Play

Lotus Line

Possum Play

Artist

Inscriptions

Quote from Paul Keating’s Redfern Park speech

Inscription commemorating artist Michael Riley

Commission

Get arts and culture updates from City of Sydney News.