A 30-metre emu constellation guards Sydney's new airport interchange

Give a rigid piece of motorway infrastructure a culturally grounded centrepiece that reads across every network using the interchange — road, Metro rail, aviation, cycling and pedestrian.

A 30-metre lenticular sculpture of the Dharug 'Great Emu in the Sky' story, set where motorway, metro, aviation and foot traffic all cross.

Balarinji co-created the work with Dharug-connected artists Danny Eastwood, Jamie Eastwood, Danielle Mate, Jasmine Seymour and Leanne Watson, conceived by lead artist Tim Moriarty under its Designing with Country method. A 372-tonne structure carries the lenticular artwork depicting Mariong, the Emu and Mother Spirit, becoming a constellation in the Milky Way.

Gold in Built Environment Installation at the 2026 Australian Good Design Awards and Gold in Pop-Ups, Display, Exhibit & Set Design at the 2026 Sydney Design Awards.

At the junction of the M12 Motorway and Western Sydney International Airport, Transport for NSW commissioned a 30-metre public artwork that draws on the Dharug story of Mariong — the Emu and Mother Spirit becoming a constellation in the Milky Way. The piece is lenticular, so its form shifts with the viewer's angle, and it is visible simultaneously from motorway, Metro rail, aviation, cycling and pedestrian networks: a sculpture that has to work at 100 km/h and at walking pace.

Balarinji Studio curated and co-created the work with five Dharug-connected artists — Danny Eastwood, Jamie Eastwood, Danielle Mate, Jasmine Seymour and Leanne Watson — conceived by Balarinji lead artist Tim Moriarty and delivered through the studio's Designing with Country methodology, which puts Aboriginal knowledge holders inside the design process rather than consulting them afterwards. The sculpture sits on a 372-tonne structure.

In 2026 the work took Gold in the Built Environment Installation category at the Australian Good Design Awards — where the jury singled out the contrast between the rigid infrastructure and the sculpture's organic form, and the collaboration with local Knowledge Holders — and Gold in Pop-Ups, Display, Exhibit & Set Design at the Sydney Design Awards.

The interchange is the meeting point of five transport networks, so the artwork was designed to reward both motorway-speed glimpses and slow pedestrian reading — the lenticular form does both.

Designing with Country made Dharug Knowledge Holders co-creators rather than consultants, so the cultural story is load-bearing in the design instead of decorative cladding.

The organic emu form plays directly against the site's rigid engineering; the Good Design Awards jury cited exactly that contrast as what makes the piece work.

Anchoring the work in a specific Dharug story gives commuters a narrative to return to, not just an abstract pattern.

Infrastructure can carry story without losing function: co-creating with Traditional Custodians turned a concrete interchange into a place people read, not just pass.

Both Gold awards arrived in 2026: the Australian Good Design Awards (Built Environment Installation) and the Sydney Design Awards (Pop-Ups, Display, Exhibit & Set Design). Balarinji co-founder and managing director Ros Moriarty framed the recognition as evidence that Aboriginal narratives belong in the built environment, and Ngemba-Dharug artist Jamie Eastwood said the piece invites the whole community into the richness of Dharug history, every day, on the way to the airport.