Taking stories as old as time to a contemporary setting in the heart of Sydney
It’s a part of Sydney traditionally associated with Australia’s colonial past, but a cultural shift signals a more layered approach to history through public art
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If Sydney is Australia’s premier destination, then Circular Quay is the gateway to the Emerald City. Best known for its access to the harbour, with the Sydney Opera House on one peninsular and the sandstone terraces of The Rocks on the other, it’s a hotspot for tourists and history buffs alike.
Unless, of course, your notion of history extends beyond the past 250 years.
In recent years, there’s been a move to reflect a more layered notion of the past that better reflects First Nations’ stories – a history that stretches back thousands of years. As this part of the city undergoes yet another renewal process, developers have taken the opportunity to engage with Indigenous artists to integrate stories that are thousands of years old into some of the newest buildings.
The latest edition are art installations that form part of Sydney Place, a new casual dining precinct connecting Pitt and George Streets near Circular Quay.
Following on from his success at the Venice Biennale, Indigenous artist Daniel Boyd was invited to create an interactive art installation as an entry point to the dining space at Sydney Place. Working with architect David Adjaye, Boyd has designed a soaring steel canopy on the George Street frontage featuring a roof punctuated with round holes to reflect the constellations of the night sky.
The full extent of Indigenous understanding of astronomy is only just beginning to be revealed but the artwork stands as a reminder that even in the centre of the CBD, there are larger forces at play.
“I was trying to create a building and space that wasn’t static and trying to use light to take the building into motion,” Boyd said. “It’s macro and micro at the same time, understanding that point in time and space.”
Boyd said the notion of layering histories over such a built-up site was one to be welcomed.
“It’s about acknowledging the history of the site in a more inclusive and equitable way,” Boyd said. “These opportunities to open spaces give First Nations people the chance to feel comfortable.
“They don’t have to grapple with the language of the built environment because it’s an open space that invites layers of association.”
Kamilaroi man Dennis Golding and fellow artist Louise Zhang also created work for Sydney Place in a collaboration using neon lights combined with traditional Chinese and Indigenous motifs.
Golding said both he and Zhang drew on their family experiences as migrants – Zhang’s from China and Golding’s from Gamilaroi and Biripi country – to create an artwork in the heart of Sydney.
“My family moved to Redfern for affordable housing, work opportunities and education and that’s where that community grew from the late 60s as families moved into the city,” Golding said. “We all worked on the rails. It’s that shared experience of being from somewhere else and coming to Sydney for work.”
The latest works in Sydney Place are part of the growing Indigenous art presence, which includes five integrated artworks Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi man Jonathan Jones created for the nearby Quay Quarter Lanes redevelopment, as well as the bara, or fish hook sculpture, by Judy Watson on the Tarpeian Precinct Lawn on the edge of the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Curated by Hetti Perkins, bara is part of City of Sydney’s Eora Journey, and is designed to offer greater recognition of Indigenous culture and heritage.
It follows an international review of cultural interpretation undertaken by Perkins and architect Julie Cracknell in 2010. Public art is one of four components of the Eora Journey, which also includes access to education and employment and training opportunities.
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Meta is betting on a human-first AI future, but growing legal battles and declining public trust are putting Mark Zuckerberg’s vision to the test.
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“Call us optimists. Call us dreamers. Call us whatever the hell you want, but we’re betting on people, and we like those odds. The future is for everyone.”
That ad copy is from the voice-over of a July Meta Platforms META -3.38%.
spot that’s been part of a public-relations blitz to position Meta as the humanist AI company. The message was undercut by the ad’s inclusion of David Bowie’s “Five Years,” a brooding 1972 song about an impending apocalypse. But this week CEO Mark Zuckerberg left no ambiguity, publishing a 6,500-word manifesto—about 10 times the length of this newsletter—with a title that echoed the ad: “The Future is for Everyone.”
That seems to be Meta’s new tagline. In light of sinking public opinion and the company’s thousands of lawsuits from states, school districts, parents, and users, Meta’s public relations have been defensive. This push represents a return to offense, with a chance to distinguish Meta’s approach to AI from other labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or SpaceX SPCX +9.65%.
“It is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance would rush to build that future.”
Zuckerberg frames what sort of future we build with AI as the central issue of our time. “We believe that delivering superintelligence to everyone is the way to answer this question,” he says. “This has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where individuals can use this powerful new capability to reach their full potential, pursue their interests, and improve their lives and the world more than ever before.”
The flood of words belies the situation on the ground in mid-2026. Americans, at least, have a love-hate affair with social media. A November Pew Research Center poll reported that 71% of U.S. adults used Facebook, and 51% used Instagram. Worldwide, 3.6 billion people use at least one Meta app every day.
But in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in July and August, 61% of respondents said they wanted more government oversight of social media, and two-thirds supported laws to keep children under 16 years old off the platforms. When it comes to Meta in particular, in the 2026 Axios Harris 100, an annual poll about corporate reputation, Meta placed 96th out of 100. It’s only above two other social media companies, Chinese ultracheap retailer Temu, and Spirit Airlines, a defunct air carrier. Regarding ethics, Meta came in last, and it was only ahead of TikTok in trust.
The steady drip of headlines in the teen social media trials isn’t helping. Last week, Meta lost a judgment in New Mexico state court that raised their liability in that relatively small jurisdiction to nearly $1 billion dollars. On Wednesday, jury selection began for a federal case with four states suing Meta over addictive product design, and false marketing that said its platforms were safe for teenagers. In July, Meta claimed that the states are asking for a total of $1.4 trillion in damages, in addition to design changes in the apps. This is part of a multidistrict litigation, where thousands of federal trials with social media defendants are coordinated in Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ district courthouse in Oakland, Calif.
There is a separate such group of thousands of cases in California state court, mostly with individual plaintiffs. The steady drip of bad headlines from the courts will continue unless Meta decides to settle en masse.
Meanwhile, in the second quarter, Meta booked “$2.40 billion of charges related to legal proceedings,” according to its quarterly filing. That may be just the beginning.
Zuckerberg spent 6,500 words getting his utopian message out, but I can sum it up in two: Trust us. The evidence is that Meta has a long way to go to win back that trust.
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