Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 10 hours ago
This Vivid Sydney livestream event will begin at 6:00PM AEST on 23rd May 2025.
A defining voice of late 20th century radical counterculture, David McDiarmid fused art, fashion, nightlife with bold activism and unapologetic self-expression.
On the 30th anniversary of the artist’s death, Lighting of the Sails: Kiss of Light transforms his life’s work, rooted in activism and provocation, into a new animation projected onto the Sydney Opera House for Vivid Sydney.
Organised by mood and feeling, Kiss of Light is a slow dance of texture, colour, feeling and ideas, tracing the artist’s punk, queer sensibility. Featuring four key bodies of work —the Bedsheet Paintings, Disco Kwilts, Kiss of Light and Rainbow Aphorisms — the animation draws forward McDiarmid’s practice to the present day, broadcasting the experiences of a repressed minority while embodying complex truths, absorbing fear and preserving memory.
Across seven minutes, Kiss of Light reveals how McDiarmid used irony, humour and fierce intimacy to celebrate diverse gender and sexual identities. By honouring the utopian underpinnings of his work, Kiss of Light is a rallying cry for equality, inclusion and freedom, reminding us that joy, curiosity and creative rebellion build a better world.
Commissioned and presented by Vivid Sydney and Sydney Opera House.
Co-curated by Dr. Sally Gray, Gill Minervini and Micheal Do.
Animated by VANDAL.
Soundtrack by Stereogamous
#vividsydney #VividLIVE
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SUBSCRIBE to Sydney Opera House: https://soh.online/Subscribe
The new streaming service from the Sydney Opera House has arrived.
Get access to a selection of world-class performing and digital arts. Sign up for free stream.sydneyoperahouse.com
Sydney Opera House is an Australian icon and one of the busiest performing arts centres in the world. On this channel you will find performances, behind the scenes content and stories from beneath the sails. With over 40 shows a week at the Sydney Opera House there's something for everyone.
We’re not-for-profit and raise over 90% of costs from non-government sources.
Learn more at sydneyoperahouse.com/give
Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/sydneyoperahouse
Twitter: twitter.com/sydoperahouse
and Instagram: instagram.com/sydneyoperahouse
What's On at Sydney Opera House:
bit.ly/SOHWhatsOn
This Vivid Sydney livestream event will begin at 6:00PM AEST on 23rd May 2025.
A defining voice of late 20th century radical counterculture, David McDiarmid fused art, fashion, nightlife with bold activism and unapologetic self-expression.
On the 30th anniversary of the artist’s death, Lighting of the Sails: Kiss of Light transforms his life’s work, rooted in activism and provocation, into a new animation projected onto the Sydney Opera House for Vivid Sydney.
Organised by mood and feeling, Kiss of Light is a slow dance of texture, colour, feeling and ideas, tracing the artist’s punk, queer sensibility. Featuring four key bodies of work —the Bedsheet Paintings, Disco Kwilts, Kiss of Light and Rainbow Aphorisms — the animation draws forward McDiarmid’s practice to the present day, broadcasting the experiences of a repressed minority while embodying complex truths, absorbing fear and preserving memory.
Across seven minutes, Kiss of Light reveals how McDiarmid used irony, humour and fierce intimacy to celebrate diverse gender and sexual identities. By honouring the utopian underpinnings of his work, Kiss of Light is a rallying cry for equality, inclusion and freedom, reminding us that joy, curiosity and creative rebellion build a better world.
Commissioned and presented by Vivid Sydney and Sydney Opera House.
Co-curated by Dr. Sally Gray, Gill Minervini and Micheal Do.
Animated by VANDAL.
Soundtrack by Stereogamous
#vividsydney #VividLIVE
__
SUBSCRIBE to Sydney Opera House: https://soh.online/Subscribe
The new streaming service from the Sydney Opera House has arrived.
Get access to a selection of world-class performing and digital arts. Sign up for free stream.sydneyoperahouse.com
Sydney Opera House is an Australian icon and one of the busiest performing arts centres in the world. On this channel you will find performances, behind the scenes content and stories from beneath the sails. With over 40 shows a week at the Sydney Opera House there's something for everyone.
We’re not-for-profit and raise over 90% of costs from non-government sources.
Learn more at sydneyoperahouse.com/give
Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/sydneyoperahouse
Twitter: twitter.com/sydoperahouse
and Instagram: instagram.com/sydneyoperahouse
What's On at Sydney Opera House:
bit.ly/SOHWhatsOn
