Sharing Light is a large-scale public artwork to be installed in Archer Park this December, marking one year since the Bondi Beach attack. An immersive field of lights will transform Archer Park into a collective space to come together and remember.
Thousands of handmade clay vessels will be arranged in a grid within the park, each housing a solar-powered light. As the sun sets, the vessels illuminate, creating a deeply communal experience and a space for the people of Sydney to gather, pause and reflect.
What makes this project distinctive is its foundation in community participation. The clay vessels are made by members of the public — community groups, schools, Bondi locals, old and young — and it is this act of collective making that is central to the work's meaning. Sharing Light is a way for our community to come together and demonstrate support for one another. Each unique clay vessel becomes one of thousands that fill the park with light, transforming it from a site of trauma and loss to a space of inclusivity, hope and community spirit.
Sharing Light is an independent project developed by a local team of artists and practitioners, presented in collaboration with Waverley Council, with the support of Victims of Terrorism Australia (VOTA) and Rabbi Ulman from Chabad Bondi.
Sharing Light offers something different: a commemorative space that people build together, rather than one simply presented to them — one that holds grief and hope in the same gesture.
The aim of the project is to work together as a community to reclaim Archer Park and transform it into a space of light and hope. It does this through a quiet, cumulative act of solidarity, evidenced by the thousands of clay vessels, each unique and bearing the imprint of its maker. The vessels are fired and lit — both fragile and enduring — and arranged in a grid across the site: an immersive field of care that invites visitors to enter.
Sharing Light is not a memorial. It is a temporary public artwork, in place for eleven days and nights only, after which it will be taken down. It has been deliberately designed as a moment of shared reflection and hope around the anniversary, rather than as a permanent or formal memorial.
The creation of a permanent memorial is a separate, long consultative process that Waverley Council is initiating over the coming months, drawing on funding secured from the state government. Council will tender expressions of interest for a permanent exhibition in due course.
The timing of Sharing Light is not accidental. In 2026, the installation opens on the evening of Friday 4 December — the first night of Chanukah, the Jewish festival of light — and remains in place beyond it, through to 14 December, the anniversary of the Bondi attack. The idea of light overcoming darkness sits at the heart of Chanukah, and it speaks directly to the spirit of this project.
Sharing Light is a nondenominational project — created for, and open to, absolutely everyone, of every faith and background. It is not a Jewish or religious event, and it is not anti-Jewish; it is a shared act of hope for the whole community, at a time when light is meaningful to many of us.
From now until December, Sharing Light runs a rolling program of vessel-building workshops — giving people right across Sydney the chance to come together and express solidarity with one another.
Dedicated workshops with schools, particularly those local to Bondi and the Waverley local government area — from small classes to groups of 200.
Sessions with first responder organisations, health services, support groups, survivors, victims' next of kin and wider community organisations.
Open sessions at Bondi Pavilion and partner community centres, for anyone — individuals and families — who wants to add their vessel to the field. No sign-up needed.
Sharing Light was created by a handful of local artists and practitioners who came together wanting to mark this anniversary in a way that would bring people from across the community into a shared act of care. In keeping with the collective spirit of the work, the artists have chosen not to be named individually — the focus is intentionally on the community's shared act of making, not on any individual's authorship.
"It reflects what the project is trying to say: that Sharing Light belongs to everyone who takes part, not to any single artist."
Sharing Light