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[013]BIN CHICKEN COLLECTIVE — SYDNEYILLUSTRATION · MOTION · SOUND · OBJECTS · 2026[COLLECTION]
SYDNEY
through my eyes.
The city you only notice once you’ve lived in it. Not the postcard Sydney. The Sydney of bin night and the 6am cockatoos, the corner pub and the pie cart after midnight, the light rail sliding down George Street and the ferry to Manly. Twenty-eight gouache scenes, each one a looping animation with its own sound, then carried onto the objects people keep: keyrings, pins, stickers, totes, a notebook and a bandana.
[01 / THE SERIES]
A love letter painted in gouache, then made to move.
Every scene is built the way gouache is: flat, opaque layers of chalky colour, hard edges where paint meets paint, and the slightly imperfect hand that makes a picture feel made rather than rendered. The palette stays close to the city itself: harbour blues, sandstone, jacaranda purple, and the white-and-black of the bin chicken that gave the collective its name.
Then each painting was given a small life. A ferry crosses, a crossing button ticks, a hoist turns in the wind, a kookaburra laughs. Every loop is scored with its own sound, so the city is something you hear as much as see. Scroll down: tap once and the loop in the middle of your screen is the one you hear.
The loops
[27 SCENES · SOUND ON — SCROLL][02 / 28]
Light Railon George St.
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QVBunder the dome.
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Opera Housesails at noon.
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Hills HoistSunday washing.
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Bin Nightkerbside, once a week.
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Crossing Buttontick, tick, tick.
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Bridge Climbthe coathanger.
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Manly Ferryseven miles from Sydney.
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Luna Parkjust for fun.
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Paddingtonterraces and lace.
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Corner Pubone schooner.
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IcebergsBondi, before work.
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Sausage Sizzledemocracy, with onions.
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Brekkieflat white, smashed avo.
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Fish & Chipsmind the gulls.
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Pie Cartafter midnight.
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Kombiboards on the roof.
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Beach Kittowel, zinc, thongs.
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Cockatoosthe 6am alarm.
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Lorikeetsloud and lovely.
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Kookaburrahaving a laugh.
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Waratahthe state flower.
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JacarandaNovember purple.
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Sydney Towerthe golden needle.
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Double Deckertop deck, front seat.
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Three SistersBlue Mountains.
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UNSW LibraryKensington.
[02 / OBJECTS]
The things you actually take home.
A souvenir only works if you would carry it on an ordinary Tuesday. So the scenes became objects that live in pockets, on bags and on desks: enamel keyrings cut to the silhouette of each scene, a run of cap pins, die-cut stickers, a hardcover notebook, a zip pouch, two totes and a printed bandana. Same paintings, same palette, every surface.
[03 / IN SITU]
Then we put them back where they came from.
The last step was the most fun: walking the characters back into the real city. A bin chicken on the kerbside bins, another in the fog on an empty road, a gull on the wharf beside a Manly ferry, the light rail in a George Street laneway. Painted Sydney, standing in photographed Sydney.
