Late last year I spent every weekend over a six week period travelling back and forward to Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour to document and facilitate a project called ‘The Ironlak Bus’. The bus was one small component of the Outpost Festival – Art from the streets.

We finally got around to dusting off the archives and putting together a video of the project.

The Outpost Festival attracted approximately 90,000 people over the course of six weeks and included an array of talent from Australia and abroad. Being a mainstream event, the festival was heavily focussed on street art, so for Ironlak’s involvement we felt it was important to ensure that graffiti was represented on the island. The Ironlak Bus showcased a different graffiti writer every weekend, painting live and direct on one side of the bus. This meant that every two weeks the artwork from the prior fortnight was destroyed, making way for a new piece and making a nice comment on the transient nature of graffiti. The use of the bus itself as a canvas was a homage to the public transport origins of graffiti and quickly became a central hub for graff on the island, with sneaky tags multiplying daily and rapidly filling every spare inch of the bus’ body and windows.

So here’s the video; better late than never, right?

Thanks to all the writers involved (Sofles, Dmote, Roach, Shem, Reals and Marsh), the team at Cockatoo Island and aMbush gallery. Shouts to everyone who came down and chilled with us.

Shot: Luke Shirlaw (Shem footage shot: Selina Miles).
Cut: Selina Miles.

Photographs: Luke Shirlaw.