Queen Victoria Building – Christmas Tree

The QVB Christmas Tree saw a Native Australian artistic overlay with the truly unique Christmas tree shining a light on aboriginal culture within our nation, by collaborating with artists from Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative. Chas Clarkson was able to provide a new platform for artists Jude Jarrett and Jeffrey Samuels who hand painted a series of flannel flower decorations which adorn the tree. Their paintings highlight indigenous spirituality and the artists beliefs in looking after nature. Sitting beneath the floating Christmas tree sits Dr Bronwyn Bancroft’s walkthrough artscape. A homage to Mother Nature and Aboriginal peoples’ successful relationship with the natural world. Chas Clarkson worked with Dr Bronwyn to bring to life a lustrous vision of bush and rain forest and turn this into a walkthrough immersive artscape. Suspended above the artscape is a flock of birds inspired by the now endangered Royal Southern Albatross. Accompanied by the ‘Songs of Disappearance’, an album of birdcalls of threatened species plays as the ambient audio within the artscape, highlighting the plight of these endangered birds whose calls could soon be silenced. ‘The Songs of Disappearance’ was created by the acclaimed nature recordist David Stewart Nature Sound, the Bowerbird Collective. The iconic QVB Christmas Tree continues to be a major festive attraction in Sydney’s CBD.