A STEP, STEP, STEP BACK IN TIME

For decades, Sydney locals would plunge the depths into Wynyard Station by using the wooden escalators in York Street. Terribly nostalgic with a rhymical rattling sound, over time these would become more of a problem than they were worth. With great sadness they would be replaced. So, what to do with the four tracks of steps?

Interloop now hangs from Wynyard station ceiling, hovering above the modern escalators that travel underground from York Street. The vast twisting accordion-shaped sculpture reconfigured the heritage escalators that once stood there in a stitched form. Interloop measures more than fifty metres in length, weighs over five tonnes, and weaves in 244 wooden treads and four combs from the original escalators.

With Interloop, chosen artist Chris Fox has taken the physical material of the escalators operating at Wynyard since the 1930’s and interpreted it in a contemporary way. The work is not nostalgic; it doesn’t look back in a sentimental fashion. Instead, it simply takes a physical element known to generations of Sydney commuters and renders timeless that particular piece of Sydney’s cultural heritage, at the same time cementing it in our collective memory. Chris Fox has interpreted this unique public art brief and created an artwork that resonates so strongly with the people of Sydney.

IMAGE CREDIT: Josh Raymond