Public Art: Sun Stadium

UQ Arts is proud to present Sun Stadium, a public artwork commissioned to mark the inauguration of the UQ Lakes Precinct.  

Made from sustainable materials, Sun Stadium takes the form of a sundial and has been realised by artist and choreographer Amrita Hepi in collaboration with poet Jazz Money, and Dialogue Office’s Christopher Bassi, Five Mile Radius and Sibling Architecture. 

The collaborative team ideated Sun Stadium as a place to mark time. The life-sized artwork invites the viewer to stand at the centre of the dial, on the month, and connect with place through their body and with the sun. Their shadow will fall anticlockwise on the hour and across the poem that circumnavigates the surface of the dial. 

Each element in Sun Stadium embraces different conceptions of time: solar, circular, local, and deep. Along with the dial’s form, material, colours, and language, the viewer’s embodied presence is the final element that allows it to tell time.  

Visitors are invited to slow down, reflect and become attuned to the natural, cyclical rhythm of what surrounds them. Sun Stadium acknowledges the sun as an elemental life force essential to sustaining people, culture and Country—including animals, lands, skies, waters, winds, and seasons—since the first sunrise on this continent. 

This public art commission is proudly presented by:  

 Amrita Hepi  
 
Amrita Hepi (Bundjulung/Ngapuhi Territories) is a multidisciplinary artist & choreographer based in Naarm/melbourne and Bangkok. Her interest as an artist is in the idea of archive; particularly in relation to the body and how it is organized by ancestry/people/events and environment.  
 
By coalescing fact and fiction, memoir and ethnography, the local and the singular into the performance/artwork she makes. Amrita trained at NAISDA & Alvin Ailey NYC. A critically acclaimed artist she has twice been the winner of the people’s choice award from the Keir Choreographic Award, was a Forbes 30 under 30 for artist, and has shown and been commissioned nationally and internationally.  

Amrita is a Triad member of performance company APHIDS, on the board of directors and artistic associate for RISING festival and part of the Artistic Associate group for STRUT dance. Her commitment to collaboration, experimentation and kinship are key tenets to her practice. 

Jazz Money   

Jazz Money is a Wiradjuri poet and artist whose practice is centred around poetics to produce works that encompass installation, performance, film and print. Their writing has been widely published nationally and internationally, and performed on stages around the world. Jazz’s first poetry collection, the best-selling how to make a basket (UQP, 2021) was the 2020 winner of the David Unaipon Award. Their second collection mark the dawn (UQP, 2024) is the 2024 recipient of the UQP Quentin Bryce Award.  

Dialogue Office | Christopher Bassi 

Dialogue Office (Director: Christopher Bassi) is an initiative for social design thinking. First Nations-owned and operated we work across research, planning, design, architecture and education to support outcomes that centre and strengthen communities through art + design. Chris's design practice is grounded in his Meriam and Yupungathi heritage. His specific focus is on the intersections of art practice, placemaking and designing for social outcomes. Chris is skilled at determining culturally appropriate methodologies for embedding First Nation’s experience and agency into the built environment. An advocate for the arts, he currently serves on the board of directors for Aboriginal Art Co and is a practising artist represented by the Yavuz Gallery, Sydney + Singapore.

Sibling Architecture   

Sibling Architecture is a collaborative, multidisciplinary studio who design and deliver across all scales and types of building; cultural, commercial, domestic, institutional and landscape. Our research-based approach, driven by a keen interest in culture and connectivity, strengthens each project with fresh ideas and forms. 

Five Mile Radius   

Five Mile Radius is a research, design and manufacturing studio exploring a future based on natural and recycled construction materials. We deliver architecture, products and educational content that imagines a world built on a respect for material resources. Founded in 2016, our name is taken from a challenge set forth by the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. Understanding the socioeconomic and environmental benefits, he asked his countrymen to build from materials found within five miles (or eight kilometres) of their homes. We believe there is value in architecture that reflects its specific place, its specific landscape and its specific people.  

We work with low carbon bio-based materials such as timbers, earth and stone as well as construction waste and salvaged materials. Both our architecture and product work aims to limit the extraction of non-renewable resources while ensuring we consider the lifecycle of each material we use. 

Fundamental to our approach is the use of making to test architectural ideas. Our Yeronga workshop is used for processing and prototyping in conjunction with our design projects. The products in our shop are the result of architectural commissions which have unearthed valuable waste streams worthy of continued reuse.  

Our practice is known as an influential Australian voice for architecture that incorporates local resources, skills and people, helping and inspiring people to build buildings born of their local resources.