Sydney’s Opera House has been put to good use with its beautiful sails being used to launch the Baud Gili Festival of First Nations.
Filling our Sydney sky with bursts of colour, the Opera House lends its power to promote the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ 150th anniversary celebrations. In what is its first collaboration with the Sydney Opera House, the annual Badu Gili festival kicked off this month.
The work of six leading Aboriginal women artists represented in the Art Gallery’s permanent collection will light up each evening in a six-minute animation on the sails, as the Gallery leads up to the completion in 2022 of its Sydney Modern expansion project, designed by SANAA.
Badu Gili 2021: Wonder Women weaves together the work of artists from across Australia: Wadawurrung elder Marlene Gilson; Yankunytjatjara woman Kaylene Whiskey; Luritja woman Sally Mulda; Western Arrarnta women Judith Inkamala and Marlene Rubuntja, and the late Kamilaroi woman Aunty Elaine Russell.
This is the first all-female line-up for Badu Gili. Badu Gili – meaning ‘water light’ in the language of the traditional owners of Bennelong Point, the Gadigal people – is a free daily experience that explores First Nations stories in a spectacular six-minute projection on the Opera House’s eastern Bennelong sails.
A multi award-winning journalist and editor and experienced executive, Robyn Foyster has successfully led multiple companies including her own media and tech businesses. She is the editor and owner of Women Love Tech, The Carousel and Game Changers.
A passionate advocate for diversity, with a strong track record of supporting and mentoring young women, Robyn is a 2023 Women Leading Tech Champion of Change finalist, 2024 finalist for the Samsung Lizzies IT Awards and 2024 Small Business Awards finalist.
A regular speaker on TV, radio and podcasts, Robyn spoke on two panels for SXSW Sydney in 2023 and Intel's 2024 Sales Conference in Vietnam and AI Summit in Australia. She has been a judge for the Telstra Business Awards for 8 years.
Voted one of B&T's 30 Most Powerful Women In Media, Robyn was Publisher and Editor of Australia's three biggest flagship magazines - The Weekly, Woman's Day and New Idea and a Seven Network Executive.
Her career has taken her from Sydney where she began as a copy girl at Sydney's News Ltd whilst completing a BA in Arts and Government at Sydney University, to London, LA and Auckland.
After 16 years abroad, Robyn returned to Sydney as a media executive and was Editor-in-Chief of the country's biggest selling magazine, The Australian Women's Weekly.
