Interloop in 'Shifting Grounds: The Evolving Role of Art in the Australian Public Domain'

Author/Editor: Felicity Fenner

Reframing art, reclaiming place and reshaping cultural memory.

Chris Fox is featured in 'Shifting Ground: The Evolving Role of Art in the Australian Public Domain' (Formist Editions, 2025), a publication that examines how public art in Australia is being reframed — through shifts toward inclusivity, First Nations perspectives, and place-based cultural storytelling. Edited by curator Felicity Fenner, the book brings together essays and case studies from leading practitioners, documenting a broader cultural shift in how art operates within the public domain — moving beyond standalone objects toward works embedded within landscape, infrastructure, and systems of everyday life.

The publication tracks this shift across a wide set of concerns: the unsettling of modernist motives in civic sculpture, the resurgence of First Nations voices and knowledge on Country, the practice of settler artists working to acknowledge place, and the growing presence of ecological thinking — plants, forestation, climate — in the design and commissioning of public art. Alongside a foreword by Tony Albert, the book gathers four essays (Tara Heffernan on 'Unsettling Foundations', Alison Page on 'Dreaming of the Dreaming', Amy Spiers on 'Acknowledging Country', and Prudence Gibson on 'Bewitching the City') with eleven case studies spanning works by Edition Office, Danielle Robson, Callum Morton, Chris Fox, and others.

Interloop as Case Study

Within this context, 'Interloop' is presented as a case study. Installed at Wynyard Station on Gadigal land, the work transforms decommissioned escalator components into a large-scale suspended sculpture, reflecting on time, movement, and collective memory. The project sits within the publication's broader discussion of how public art can reclaim material histories and reshape cultural narratives through site-specific intervention. The case study appears on pages 72–73, pairing a full-page image of the sculpture above the station's York Street concourse with the following reflection from Chris Fox:

"Important for me was creating an otherworldly space above people's heads. The artwork explores the idea that people are stationary on an escalator while also moving, allowing for a moment of pause that occurs mid-motion. The sculpture resonates with people in this state, referencing all those journeys that have passed and are now interlooping back."

Read within 'Shifting Ground's wider inquiry, 'Interloop' operates less as a discrete object than as a sustained, ephemeral condition — a held moment of suspension above the everyday passage of the city, drawing the timber of retired escalators into a hovering, looping form that folds commuter time back on itself. Its inclusion situates the work within a national discourse on the evolving role of art in public space, where infrastructure, history, and contemporary cultural perspectives intersect.

Publication details

'Shifting Ground: The Evolving Role of Art in the Australian Public Domain'

Author/Editor: Felicity Fenner (Felicity Fenner is a curator of contemporary art and Chair of the City of Sydney's Public Art Advisory Panel)

Foreword: Tony Albert

Texts: Felicity Fenner, Tony Albert, Tara Heffernan, Alison Page, Amy Spiers, Prudence Gibson, Edition Office, Danielle Robson, Bethan Donnelly, Ellen van Neerven, Barbara Flynn, Callum Morton, Chris Fox, Nina Miall

Design: Evi-O.Studio

Published by Formist Editions

Hardcover, 176 pages, 250 × 180 mm

ISBN: 978-0-6455210-6-1

2025 | FE04