What is this SEDITION thing?
SEDITION 2020 was a very bold initiative to fill the city with art – starting at World Square – to counter the Coronavirus which has shut so many shops and cut into our civic life. Artistic Director and curator Lesa-Belle Furhagen says, “We were looking for work that was inspiring and beautiful but also had something to say about this time we’re going through. I think that people need a bit of inspiration at this moment. I also think that we look to artists to explain the world, however crazy, to us.” SEDITION @ WORLD’S SQUARE features a haunting, jewelled skull, women floating off into the rapture, an egg planet covered in oil wells and bleeding dry and more than a dozen other views of heaven or hell. This is the way it all ends? The Curators – Toby Creswell and Lesa-Belle Furhagen – have assembled a collection of artists through gallerists and through their own personal contacts. Some of the artists are very high profile such as Imants Tillers, Brooke Andrew, Blak Douglas, Jenny Watson, Reg Mombassa, Luke Sciberras, Fiona Lowry amongst others. “We have also included work by less well-known artists such as Stu Spence and Kaye Mahoney,” says Toby Creswell. All the works relate to current issues such as climate change, Covid, Black Lives Matter or gender. The work seeks to inspire rather than lecture. To be serious but also beautiful in ways that will inspire people. The artists have loaned their work for free for the project in the spirit of enlivening Sydney.