Follow Lily Hibberd on this virtual walk, on which she retraces her steps along the Meridian line from Sydney Observatory to Sydney Town Hall. Every day at midday from Monday 8 June to 1 July 2020, Lily will guide you along the line, one Meridian ‘station’ a day over 24 days. This walk reveals the history of Sydney’s Meridian, a north-south line transecting the Observatory’s Transit telescope, and the role it played in imposing an empire of regulated time on the colony as well as its connection to surveying and laying claim to the land.

As she retraces the Meridian line, you will find out how far it has shifted over time. Her walk suggests that neither time nor territory can be bound by absolute rules. In this rift of time and space lies a paradox: Eurocentric and colonial premises, including technological determinism, cannot change the reality that time itself is impossible to pin down – that time is always changing.

This blog has been created for ‘Boundless – out of time’, Lily’s month-long artist and research residency at Sydney Observatory. Presented by Powerhouse Museum as part of NIRIN, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney 2020.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.