Guardian waypointers
Accessible art, for your consideration
Why Guardian?
Guardian aims to increase accessibility at Vivid by helping visually-impaired and over-stimulated people navigate.
Why Me?
As a photosensitive Vivid die hard, I want better access and pause points that go beyond warnings & between zones.
Why Vivid?
Vivid transforms Sydney, my home, and Guardian helps us reacquaint with a sense of place.
Waypointers inviting festival-goers to rest their eyes and follow directions to Vivid’s most visually accessible installations.
5 : 1
Tactile sculpture featuring a GARGOYLE and a GUIDE dog guarding an interactive Braille design.
Numbers
Prospective costings by partner/type (based on quotes & estimates, 2025)
Budget Breakdown
Pairing Grant Applications
A group effort towards tangible impact
Rather than treat this as a solo fund wildcard, my hope is to bring together steady footing for this creative effort — no cutting corners on the consultation costs, wages or contingencies. After carefully considering both partners and materials, I’ve opted to balance sensible and meaningful choices. This is an ambitious project that takes a village.
Creative Australia = GUARDIAN (~$47k request) to make sculptures that stay with us, and meet blind/low-vision access assessment.
City of Sydney, Summer Grants 2025 = waypointers (~$33k request), lighting the way through Vivid Sydney.
“It is estimated that over 13 million Australians have one or more chronic (long-term) eye conditions, according to self-reported data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2017–18 National Health Survey (NHS).”
131,000 Australians live with partial or complete blindness.
Value vs. Cost
Q: Sculpture is an expensive art form. Why fund an emerging 2D-texture artist in this costly discipline?
A: Collaboration is the heart and backbone of this project, from contracting ethical Australian fabricators to discussing a permanent charitable home for Guardian post-debut. My part in this is comparatively small — a matter of dedication, communication & critical thinking — drawing on my creative values and people skills. I’m not the expert, but working with those that are can empower both my work and the impact of GUARDIAN waypointers.
Supporting Documents
Letters of Support
Artist Background
Proud Partners
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Profile: NextSense’s Alternative Format Publications service produces materials in braille, large print, accessible e-text and EPUB for individuals, community groups, tertiary institutions and organisations.
Collaboration: Quote from the Sonali Marathe; Manager Accessibility and Inclusion @ NextSense. Sonali and I have had warm and rapid-fire discussion on the experimental nature of this design and broken down a comfortable quote with wiggle room for development, and representative assessment with a blind/low-vision consultant.
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Profile: Liam and the Sculpt Studios team are ideal partners for this project: with facilities and experience to create large, playful-form designs in-house, ready for freighting. Of the many companies I approached Sculpt Studios stood out as capable, solution-oriented, straight-up good people.
Collaboration: Sculpt Studios would tackle the heavy lifting of fabricating both sides of the GUARDIAN waypointers project at their studio in QLD. We’ve discussed materials, intersections with other artists, and packing basics — and are ready to tackle everything in between.
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Profile: With a consistent public artworks practice since 2013, Helena is a Sydney-based sculptor with a beautiful eye for negative space, asymmetry and bronze patination.
Collaboration: Support from Creative Australia would facilitate Helena’s development of 18-20 wax forms for bronze casting in Marrickville (at Custom Casting): creating the touchable pieces of the GUARDIAN sculpture. This process would involve direct conversations with myself and Sculpt Studios. We’ve bonded over the variety and challenge of these bronze castings, and having heard about her previous collaborations I am keen to share a road in that same spirit.
This essential aspect of the GUARDIAN design is the anchor point of audience interaction.
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Instagram: @little.big.sounds
Profile: Peripatetic music teacher, co-creator of @our.little.loaf and qualified sound therapist. With a Bachelors in Film & Television and years of experience as a children’s music teacher, Jen is dedicated to understanding the social benefits and science behind music’s effects on our wellbeing.
Collaboration: With funding from Creative Australia, Jen can produce original resonances to emanate from each installation, and lead the acoustic design for our fabrication process. I have a strong creative relationship with Jen, and look forward to us formally hashing out a community-oriented project together.
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https://www.vividsydney.com/visit/access-and-inclusion
Profile: DNSW’s Vivid Access is constantly morphing to meet the needs of Vivid Sydney’s diverse audience. At present, they are very much focused on Vivid 2025.
Collaboration: Meeting with Ezzie Magrin (Operations Manager | Traffic & Stakeholder Engagement) and Elena Jovanova (Operations Coordinator | Traffic & Stakeholder Engagement) on 15th August to discuss:
GUARDIAN waypointers’ access compliance
Vivid Sydney 2026 application
Get Skilled accessibility assessment 2025 & possible visual accessibility refinement.