ANCHOR

Shipping container, parachute, sand, foil, lens
NEWANNUAL festival





We created a shipping container turned inhabitable camera obscura on the walk to Nobby Headland/Whibayganba, using nothing but an old fashioned analogue lens. Light filtered through a tiny aperture to cast an upside-down, moving projection of the headland, lighthouse and passersby onto the inner walls lined with a salvaged parachute and sand-filled tubes. Visitors were ushered in for a four-minute experience to sit and be immersed in a soundscape cobbled together from field recordings of coal loaders, passing ships, the local Tighes Hill community choir and breath.

Drawing upon our backgrounds in architecture and sculpture, we created both a disorienting and meditative device: an invitation to be still, dark, yet deeply connected to place or – as the name suggested – anchored. In a time of relentless inversions, upended certainties and unpredictability, the work offered a small space and moment for stillness: to be here but not be, to become an observer. Children were given drawings of sounds to listen out for and visitors emerged from the space seeing a familiar place in a new light.
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Filed under: public space, commons, installation


Article.
https://www.newcastle.edu.au/news/2025/10/anchor.-familiar-worlds-turned-inside-out-and-upside-down.