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Sapphire & tonic

Photo Job 04/0141 SS Bombay Sapphire Blue Room Martini exhib views Date of Photography: August 2004

This Paul Cocksedge glass light bulb display was snapped by Museum photographers during the 2004 Sydney Design Festival. Cocksedge’s intriguing light ‘Sapphire & Tonic’ was displayed in its own dark room – it glowed a most beautiful blue, but had no visible source of electricity. It was a UV light from a nearby source that released the blue hue from the work’s major ingredient: gin and tonic!

Variously referred to by critics as an artist-inventor, contemporary alchemist or design wizard, the multidisciplinary creations of this young London-based designer are truly awe-inspiring, and extremly photogenic!

Photography by Sue Stafford
© All rights reserved

Post by Erika Dicker, Assistant Curator

  • http://www.facebook.com/iraqiguy Naza Alkhateeb

    What an amazing story. Thank you for sharing this, I’m sure it was painful to recall those memories for you and your mother. I feel for the hundreds of thousands of innocent people out there in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and other places who are living this hell right now. 

  • onlykindnessmatters

    What a sobering and touching story. Factual, but implicitly emotive. The strength of your parents is amazing. Nor can I imagine the utter dispair that one goes through before making a decision to abandon everything you know everything you’ve worked towards and built. 
    We live in such a privileged country here in Australia. So far away from the trauma of war with no persecution, justice and equal rights for everyone. 
    What I want from Australians is to have more compassion and empathy towards refugees and stop having an “us and them” attitude. These people are humans escaping persecution and imminent death. Let us open our borders – or at the very least, open our hearts and minds.