SYDNEY, March 10 — Sydney is preparing to welcome visitors for its three-month Biennale, with major draws for visitors to include large-scale works by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, immersive installations that unfold before viewers, and participatory projects around the city. Below, a few of the highlights.

Ai Weiwei

Movement and migration are in focus at the 21st Biennale of Sydney, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is at the forefront of discussions around those issues. He’ll be represented by several works at the event, among them his Oscar-nominated documentary Human Flow and his recent work Law of the Journey, a 60-metre lifeboat filled with 250 life-sized figures that will fill a cavernous space on Cockatoo Island.

The artist’s Crystal Ball, revealing “a world inverted,” will show at Artspace Sydney.

Immersive, digital and live art

Digital technology, from 3D-printing to computer-generated animation, will be put to use in a number of immersive, dynamic installations, some unfolding before visitors’ eyes.

British artist Anya Gallaccio’s installation Beautiful Minds, at Cockatoo Island, uses a giant 3D printer, loaded with clay, to print a scale-model of the geological formation Devil’s Tower, located in Wyoming and made famous by Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

UK duo Semiconductor, meanwhile, will bring the immersive work Earthworks to Carriageworks, with “seismic data from the formation of glaciers, earthquakes and volcanoes around the world used to control computer-generated animation. “

At the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s will present a new installation called Potentiality for Love, a moving-image sculpture that unfolds over 22 LED modules and deals, in the artist’s words, with “the potential for empathy and love towards other living beings.”

Participatory works

Over the course of the Biennale, a total of 70 artists from six continents will present their works, many of which are the result of direct engagement with communities.

For example, Japanese theatre director Akira Takayama invited Sydney residents to perform songs or poems that had been passed down from their ancestors; the resulting video piece Our Songs — Sydney Kabuki Project, recording these oral histories, will show at the venu 4A.

Marco Fusinato’s installation at Carriageworks, meanwhile, will invite visitors to pick up a bat and strike a freestanding wall, with the sound of impact amplified to reverberate through the building. At the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Canadian-born artist Ciara Phillips will present a working, hands-on printmaking studio, while Sydney-born artist Yasmin Smith with create a ceramics studio and open-air kiln alongside her ceramic installation on Cockatoo Island.

The Biennale will be open to the public March 16 through June 11; a day before the opening, Ai Weiwei will deliver the keynote address, appearing in conversation with the 21st Sydney Biennale’s Artistic Director and curator of Tokyo’s Mori Museum, Mami Kataoka, to discuss his work.

Find out more at www.biennaleofsydney.art. — AFP-Relaxnews