Tina Havelock Stevens, Sonic Luminescence

The Best Public Art of 2024, According to Curators

Artsy Editorial

Sydney, Australia

Tina Havlock Stevens, Sonic Luminescense, 2024. Photo by Liam Vongmany. Courtesy of UAP.

A pedestrian tunnel connecting underground transport amenities in a metro station has been transformed into an astonishing place of reverence with the installation of Tina Havelock Stevens’s sound and light artwork Sonic Luminescence. Havelock Stevens is an Australian multidisciplinary artist and musician interested in the ways that sounds inhabit place. For Sonic Luminescence, the artist undertook extensive research into the history of the site and has woven archival sound bites with contemporary musical compositions and recordings of “nature’s precolonial symphony”—the birdlife that inhabited Sydney prior to colonization. The effect is a richly layered sound tapestry that transports commuters to a time and place beyond the tunnel walls.

Havelock Stevens invited three musicians to consider the character of the metro station—Yuwaalaraay vocalist Nardi Simpson; Ngiyampaa, Yuin, Bandjalang, and Gumbangirr violinist Eric Avery; and principal harpist with the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra, Emily Granger—alongside her own drumming contribution, recorded aboard a moving steam train. By inviting First Nations musicians to collaborate on the work (Simpson and Avery), Havelock Stevens placed narratives of country, custodianship, and care at the center of a modern-day infrastructure project. It is glorious, deeply thoughtful, and provides a rare moment of awe to commuters who suddenly find themselves submerged in a compelling soundtrack of music and light.

—Danielle Robson

Artsy Editorial