Closed for 40 years, White Bay Power Station has now been rid of its asbestos, lead dust, and pigeon droppings, and is ready to host the Biennale of Sydney.
With its soaring light-drenched halls, and redundant steam-driven machinery, Sydney’s old White Bay Power Station has the drama and scale of London’s Tate Modern but better, say the international curators whose job it is to fill its industrial halls with contemporary art., which once powered the city’s tram network, opens its doors in March to the public for the first time in 100 years when the 24th Biennale of Sydney stages three months of free events.
More than $100 million has been invested in White Bay’s restoration and remediation to rid it of asbestos, lead dust, and pigeon droppings, and replace rusting metalwork and broken glass.Unlike Tate Modern - the world-leading museum repurposed from a power station on the banks of the Thames River - White Bay bears signs of its working life before it was shuttered in 1983. The building retains its coal conveyor, one of four boilers, hoppers, and one of four original steam turbines.
Placemaking NSW’s chief executive, Anita Mitchell said White Bay was similar in form but maybe not in function to Tate Modern. “You can feel the massive efforts that were made by the working class at the time to create the electricity that powered Sydney’s tram network.” The building’s natural light was “better than the Tate”.The building’s role as a fossil fuel generator feeds into the Biennale’s broad curatorial theme of,which dips into the impact of climate change and disruptions of the atomic age. But the curators promise to mix politics with a vision of the future lived with hope and pops of joy.
Installations for White Bay include a large-scale mural celebrating the life of First Nations dancer and activist Malcolm Cole, who led the first Aboriginal float at the 1988 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade by Yuwi artist Dylan Mooney.
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