Vivid is a festival of light that saturates the city of Sydney in all its hypercolour glory.
More than 60 light installations are splashed across nine regions with several famous landmarks lit up, including the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The Rocks, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour, Walsh Bay and Martin Place in the city have been transformed into a hub of sound and light, with interactive technology works — such as Games of Drones — allowing the audience to totally immerse themselves.
The festival has branched into two new areas this year to cater to the growing crowd, which climbed to 1.43 million people last year. Voted the world's best tallest building, Central Park in Ultimo sees street artists create impressive light art installations and a crowd moshing at a silent disco. The suburb of Chatswood, in Sydney's north meanwhile, brings a little bit of suburbia to the mix — with an underwater fantasy land transforming the area.
Vivid Sydney Festival director Ignatius Jones, who has been behind the festival for five years, told Mashable Australia the event is an experiment in crowdsourcing and focusses on giving the ownership of art back to the people.
"Our fundemental strategy is that art is for everyone, and should be accessible to everyone. We like to take the art off the walls and put it on the streets," Jones said. "People hear the word 'art' and they run screaming, they think it is something they can't understand or afford. We think it belongs to the people, and the more people can interact and engage with it the better their lives can be."
The festival is purposefully designed so you can't see it in one night, and Jones says it attracts more people than visit Fiji annually — with that figure expected to continue to grow as new areas are added.
"It has been a crazy journey. It changes all the time. Every year Vivid is different and we have no idea [what to expect]," Jones said. "We try to do different things and as new precincts come on, we really try to let them show their own character."
The festival puts Australia's mischievous personality on display for the world to see by taking our most revered cultural icon — the Sydney Opera House — and creating light graffiti on its sails.
"One of the reasons people like Vivid is that it is irreverent. It lets people know we don't take ourselves too seriously, but we take having fun seriously. Australians are larrikins, we like to make fun of things that are elite, and we like to keep things pretty democratic — and that is one of the things that Vivid is, it is a very democratic festival," Jones added.
