Australian National Maritime Museum has announced that Vivid Sydney 2024 artwork Barani will become a permanent part of its First Nations programming.

Barani was projected onto the museum’s rooftop as part of the Southern Hemisphere’s largest multi-artform festival.

Vivid Sydney Curator Gill Minervini said: “I am incredibly proud that Vivid Sydney 2024’s legacy has resulted in Barani receiving a permanent home at the Australian National Maritime Museum.

“The theme of the 2024 festival was Humanity. It aimed to foster connections, spark imagination and showcase the multitude of ways creativity enriches our lives. Barani uses First Nations wisdom to connect people more deeply with the world around us.”

Developed by Studio Gilay, Barani - a Gadigal word meaning yesterday - offers a bittersweet narrative, rich with historical and cultural significance.

Using a unique blend of modern digital illustration and First Nations iconography, it tells a moving coming-of-age and mother and son story. Through this relationship, themes of love, connection, independence and the inextricable link between humanity and nature are explored.

Barani Project Ambassador and Vivid Sydney Vivid Sydney First Nations Advisor Rhoda Roberts AO said: “Barani is in part about the visibility of the women as fisherwoman, the first commercial merchants in what would become the colony. They saw the starvation of the newcomers and saw an opportunity to prosper as well as provide with the wisdom of their knowledge. Victimhood at the time was not part of their vocabulary.”

Australian National Maritime Museum CEO and Director Daryl Karp said: “It is wonderful to give this excellent piece of storytelling a long public life and it now underpins a new initiative in our primary education program. Based on the Vivid Sydney 2024 theme – Humanity, it tells a story of the people who protected the harbour for generations. It encourages us to stop and listen, to look and to learn, to connect and protect what surrounds us. We thank Vivid Sydney for their vision in helping to bring this to life.”

Barani will be displayed on an ongoing basis in the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Bamal Yarning Space.

Indigenous Programs Manager Matt Poll said: “Watching the storyboards develop for the Barani project, I could see that this was turning into an incredibly special project.

“It’s quite incredible how many pieces of information about Sydney’s Aboriginal past informed the overall concept of the animation. I think the part I enjoyed seeing the most was the revitalisation of the fishing song, first documented in 1791 and performed for the Barani animation by Jacinta Tobin, Nardi Simpson and Kaleena Briggs for the first time in many years. Barani is primarily a story of joy and learning, learning from family and learning from country and captures the story of Sydney’s Sea Country beautifully.”

Barani runs continuously in the Bamal Yarning Space daily, or you can watch the animation on YouTube here.

Vivid Sydney is owned, managed and produced by Destination NSW.