A bright future

Gardening Australia’s Clarence Slockee has worked alongside other talented landscapers and designers to create a pop-up native garden as part of Vivid Sydney 2024.

Presented at the Powerhouse Ultimo museum (Hardwood Building Courtyard) in partnership with Vivid Ideas Sydney, ‘A New Normal’ is part of this year’s Vivid theme, Humanity, exploring how we can make a better world together. More than 50 of Sydney’s most creative ‘doers and dreamers’ are taking part in the overarching project, helping to bring to life practical solutions to transform the city.

‘A New Normal’ was initiated in Melbourne in 2020 in response to a series of catastrophic events, including COVID-19, bushfires and floods. The project demonstrates how our cities can be transformed into resilient, zero-waste urban centres that not only sustain but also produce more energy and water than they consume.

Now re-imagined in Sydney, this part-gallery, part-pavilion features innovative prototypes that give visitors the opportunity to experience real sustainable solutions.

Included in the exhibition is a pop-up native garden called the Woody Meadow, created by the brilliant local First Nations team from Wildflower Gardens and Gardening Australia’s Clarence Slockee.

This native garden represents an achievable future whereby plants, trees, flowers, animals and birds are valued as ‘living infrastructure’. The team at Wildflower envisioned stepping out of a train station into a natural haven bustling with birds and insects. Imagine instead of lawn nature strips, we had lush woody meadows adorning our streets.

Alongside four prototypes, the exhibition showcases details for over 20 innovative concepts along its perimeter. These ideas offer practical, near-term solutions that could transform Sydney from a consumer city into a self-sufficient producer of clean energy, limitless water, and zero waste within a decade.

“This exhibition is a significant addition to Vivid Sydney this year,” says Powerhouse Chief Executive, Lisa Havilah. “It gives some of our city’s creative luminaries the opportunity to think differently about future solves to usher our city into a new era of renewables and strong economic futures.”