Australian artist collective Healy and Cordeiro have been commissioned to deliver the next Coast Walk Public Art project at North Mona Vale Headland Reserve, inspired by two elements found in the local area around Mona Vale: the dramatic sandstone headlands formed in the Triassic age, and the quirky hand-painted signs found along Barrenjoey Road wishing good tidings to family and friends.

Taking its cue from these two local elements, the artwork spells out You Are Here in sandstone blocks. As the artists point out, “We live in an age of ultimate distraction - You are Here locates people within the park. The coast is traditionally a place for contemplation and recharging one’s energy. You are Here is an affirming phrase. The words remind us of the here and now, celebrating our existence in a beautiful setting.”

Playful and humorous, the artwork will integrate with its surroundings and become part of the open space and be used as seating and play forms. The artwork will activate the Coast Walk and contribute to the quality of experience for the community and visitors.  As a distinctive and memorable public artwork, the work promotes the Northern Beaches as an exciting part of Sydney’s cultural and creative landscape. The project presents a significant opportunity for participation and engagement, including photography, and enhances connection to place.

Sean Cordeiro and Claire Healy are a renowned Australian public art team, who deliver artworks in the public domain using diverse materials and objects to create extraordinary sculptures and installations.  Their works are shaped by traditional sculptural concerns such as form and scale, and they also incorporate the expressive potential of motion, speaking to the way objects move and change over time.

Cordeiro and Healy’s installation Life Span was part of the Australian representation at the 53rd Venice Biennale. In 2012, Healy and Cordeiro created a new work titled Stasis, 2012, for their retrospective at the MCA. This temporary installation on the Museum’s front lawn consisted of a Beechcraft Travel Air suspended in a cube matrix of metal scaffolding. In 2018, they installed a major public installation Cloud Nation in Green Square Library, commissioned by The City of Sydney. They are winners of the 2022 Sulman Prize, awarded for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist, and unveiled their latest major permanent public art commission Place of the Eels in Parramatta Square in September 2022.