Ngaraora – Jasmin Sarin
Image Credit: Jenni Carter
Audio description
Audio descriptions were produced by Access2Arts.
Artwork information
- Title: Ngaraora (2025)
- Artist: Jasmin Sarin
- Location: Gadigal Reserve, Summer Hill
Text description
Ngaraora is a sculptural playspace in Gadigal Reserve. It features a black cockatoo shaped cubby house and wooden balancing structures created by Jasmin Sarin, a proud Kam-il-a-roi and Jerrin-ja woman from New South Wales.
Signage text reads
Ngaraora 2025, Jasmin Sarin
Ngaraora (Dha-ra-wal for Glossy Black Cockatoo) acknowledges this magnificent bird that once relied upon the habitat of turpentine and she-oak trees.
Incorporating an interactive, tactile, and accessible playspace into the sculpture, Ngaraora not only encourages play but provides a connection for the next generation to engage with the local knowledge of our people and this place.
Ngaraora has many dreaming stories all the way around the coast. Ngaraora's soulful calls are said to bring the rain or warn of stormy weather. Many of our mob's stories mention the Ngaraora, that they safely guide the spirits of our people into the Dreaming.
Artist quote
This artwork on the Land of the Gadigal and Wangal peoples, brings to life the Glossy Black Cockatoo encouraging play and cultural connection for everyone in the community.
Made from sustainable timber to represent the turpentine ironbark trees and sandstone which pays tribute to the surrounding aqueduct structures, this artwork is, in essence, belonging to place.
Artwork description
The sculptural playspace is 25 metres long by 6 metres wide and contains a red/brown timber and rust-coloured corten steel cubby house shaped like a 3.5 metre high cockatoo.
A sloped climbing wall 60 centimetre wide, forms the cockatoo’s tail, leading to a 90 centimetre high platform inside its body. The body is formed of vertical slats, while diagonal slats form the wings. Horizontal slats curve to create the roof, which is the cockatoo’s head. Grey metal creates the cockie’s comb, eyes and beak.
A square mesh ‘cargo net’ is slung from the platform’s front to the base of sturdy wooden posts sunk into the ground. The cubby house area is nearly 5 metres from the base of the tail to the end of the cargo net. Below the platform the walls are made of russet Corten Steel pierced with a floral motif and double wavy lines of dots.
Beyond the cubby house are a series of 3m high wooden posts. The honey-hued timbers have been debarked and sanded smooth. Black dots trail around the tall posts, interspersed with carved hand outlines, fingers outstretched. The posts are linked by bench-style planks at different levels, no taller than 1 metre high. The planks’ ends have rounded corners and sometimes painted green central squares Other smaller supporting or stepping posts are encircled with black, light and dark green painted stripes.
Within these timber structures are stepping posts of varying heights and thicknesses, the tallest of these being 1m high. Clusters of stepping posts are found throughout the play area. Some of them have 45cm x 30cm small platforms on top. They are very sturdy and suitable for sitting or balancing on.
The sculptural play area is shaded by tall established trees. The surface underneath the play area is loose forest mulch and leaves.
Surrounding context
The GreenWay continues north through the Longport Street Tunnel to a 6 by 8 metre picnic area on the left, with a wooden table and two bench seats on a cement mat.
The surrounding gravelled area is bordered by low stone walls that step down to the Ngaraora sculptural playground.
One metre high hooped-metal fencing separates the mulched garden border near the path, from the play area. Long logs, suitable for balancing, zigzag along the bottom of the fence. The far left border of the play area is formed by a low stone wall approximately 30 centimetres wide. The ground level drops slightly to a garden area on the other side.
General lighting on low 45cm high black hooded column lights, provides illumination along the path at night.
Ngaraora is one of eight artworks that explore themes of, and collaborate with, the natural environment, local rail history and native flora and fauna, curated by GreenWay Public Art Program.
Proudly funded by the NSW Government in association with Inner West Council on the Land of the Gadigal and Wangal peoples.
This concludes the audio description for Ngaraora, written by Catherine Fitz-Gerald for Access2arts.