Rochelle Haley
Transforming Sydney’s Carriageworks and an inner-city laneway, EVER SUN by Rochelle Haley is an immersive artwork to connect its audience to the rising and setting of the sun.
Words: Emma-Kate Wilson
Photo - Jacquie Manning
Photo: Jessica Mauer
Sydney-based artist Rochelle Haley first began developing EVER SUN in early September 2020 during a time that faced life in a pandemic. Commissioned by Performance Space and presented at Liveworks 21-25 October 2020 in the Carriageworks public foyer, an extension of the work was later revealed by the City Of Sydney for the City Art Laneways program, suspended above Wilmot Street, near the CBD’s Town Hall.
‘The work aims to tune the viewer’s eye and mind to the constancy and change we experience daily with the rising and setting of the sun,’ Rochelle shares. ‘I designed the work by paying close attention to how the sunlight changes and interacts with the architecture across the day.’
After the isolation of 2020’s lockdowns, Rochelle considered how we would be able to come together, navigating a covid world. As such, EVER SUN was designed to be inspiring and uplifting. The colours mirroring the tranquilly or peace found in a sunrise or sunset.
The title of the installation artwork refers back to this concept, but also the dark reality that one day the sun will die. ‘It’s so essential to our everyday that it is as if it will burn on forever,’ Rochelle explains. “The title also borrows from a line in a Pablo Neruda sonnet ‘No one else will travel through the shadows with me, only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.’
The veils dance like beads in the sunlight using thousands of tiny laser-cut acrylic disks, reflecting sunlight in sparkling beams or glowing from within at night. Rochelle chose this material for its translucent qualities and range of fluoro and bright sunset colours.
‘Shapes, colours and forms are repeated across the veils of beads, the costumes and some of the formal elements of the choreography,’ says Rochelle Haley. Photo: Jacquie Manning
“I was thinking about creating a space for people to be together after a long period of isolation in 2020, while still being sensitive to hesitation and distance everyone needed to have in public.”
‘The work’s strong sunset palette is enhanced by the long beams of actual sunlight flooding Wilmot Street in its East-West orientation,’ says Rochelle. Photo: Jessica Mauer
Sydney-based artist Rochelle Haley. Photo: Zan Wimberley
The material looks really different in different lighting conditions; it shines brightly in direct sunlight and casts colourful shadows on the ground,’ the artist adds. ‘I enjoy how the work appears to have different ‘personalities’ depending on the mood of the weather.’
In the artwork’s second home at Wilmot Street, EVER SUN floats above the audiences as they walk through the laneway. Alongside a static work, Rochelle invited a collaboration with choreographers/ performers Angela Goh, Ivey Wawn, performers Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber, and costume designer Leah Giblin. These performances activate the space, giving movement and depth to the installation—drawn from a long relationship and friendship between Rochelle and performers Angela and Ivey.
‘The work’s strong sunset palette is enhanced by the long beams of actual sunlight flooding Wilmot Street in its East-West orientation,’ Rochelle shares. ‘EVER SUN reflects the arches from nearby city architecture and other points of visual connection with sightlines of the street.’
As we consider the artwork’s place in the city and amongst its performers, EVER SUN offers reminders of life’s cycles, and our own role within a pandemic, creative, world. Rochelle hopes to create an ‘inspiring space to walk and reflect, feel nurtured by colour and light, and be together, sensitively, in a way that reminds us of the resilience, necessity and beauty of art.’
‘The colours and materials of the work are uplifting, but I think the work is also about the reality that everything ends, and something new starts again,’ says Rochelle Haley.Photo: Jacquie Manning