Unfamiliar Customs

Overview

Customs house has been reworked any number of times. It's got a pretty rude facade, pocked with classical columns, a coat of arms, ornamental clock with deformed dolphins, arcades and some Indian symbols which have long shifted their meaning. It's already a bit of a strange texture, but as part of this year's Vivid Sydney they're giving this building yet another facelift. It's Customs House's turn to have its front electronically painted with projected light for Lights On — a whole new level of strange being slapped on the building by The Electric Canvas.

The Electric Canvas has worked on light installations in Auckland, Adelaide and Singapore. Not to mention being the regular motive force behind Vivid's sail-lighting projections on the Opera House, and lighting up Sydney's governing district last year for Macquarie Visions — where they gave a full-body makeover to St Mary's Cathedral, from its Papal steps to the reconstructed spires. In Auckland they shook the walls themselves and pulled spectators up into the image, and here in Sydney they promise to transform Customs House from stone to paper and glass, and shiver it to liquid.

*Lights are turned on from 6pm — midnight.

Original image from State Records NSW.