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A bespoke installation created in celebration of 2025 NAIDOC Week.
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Simone Thomson (Wurundjeri, Yorta Yorta, Wiradjuri)
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Images courtesy of Knight Frank
For NAIDOC Week 2025, Knight Frank wanted to commission a temporary activation. Our team worked closely with Wurundjeri/Yorta Yorta artist and designer Simone Thomson to create a vibrant temporary installation along the Birrarung. Translating the artist’s original hand sketches and drawings, we worked closely to craft the layered design under her direction.
Using colour-rich vinyl across glass and architectural surfaces, the work transformed the site into a dynamic storytelling space that celebrated this year’s NAIDOC theme and its connection to Country.
The installation drew on the symbolism of woven baskets — vessels for holding knowledge, memory and cultural inheritance. In Simone’s design, these forms became flowing motifs across the built surface, carrying the idea of stories gathered and shared along the river. Positioned beside the Birrarung, the work acknowledged the river as both life source and pathway, a place of gathering that continues to connect people across time.
The result was an installation that was both celebratory and reflective: a bold, colourful presence in the city that invited passersby to pause, connect with story, and honour the living cultures of the Birrarung during NAIDOC Week.
Set along the Birrarung, the artwork reflected the river’s role as both a life source and a pathway of exchange, a place where knowledge flows like water — from Elders to youth, from past to present, and into the future. By embedding this narrative in bold, contemporary design, the installation honoured the legacies of ancestors while celebrating the strength of today’s communities and the vision of young leaders shaping tomorrow.
Our role was to help translate Thomson’s separate drawings, paintings and sketches into a large-scale temporary vinyl work — ensuring that the temporary medium carried the full weight of its cultural significance. The result was an artwork that not only marked the 50-year milestone of NAIDOC Week, but also invited the public to witness and share in the ongoing resilience and creativity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
