Having been introduced by artist colleague Alana Hunt, in January 2026 I worked with Mumbai-based collective CAMP (Shaina Anand, Kush Badhwar and Rohan Chavan) to create and film Love Speech, a 1-minute ‘walking performance’ for Sydney Opera … CAMP’s film work for the 25th Biennale of Sydney, shot from a CCTV camera atop the White Bay Power Station. This is my entreaty, spoken whilst walking down Brent Street in Rozelle towards the Power Station carrying 350.org’s big NO MORE COAL & GAS sign …
Love Speech
Hello. I’m David Watson … a Rozelle local, artist and father who’s lived here on Gadigal-Wangal Country for 35 years.
I’m walking down for a chat with the White Bay Power Station, which (until 1984) powered Sydney by burning coal to create electricity for almost 70 years …
It’s great that today you’re energising the city in new ways, as a home for creativity, ideas, art, music & performance. But I’d also like to see your landmark form, its monumental crenellated façades and steam towers covered in solar panels & wind turbines … a sustainable beacon to the future rather than a lumbering memorial to our fossil-fuelled, climate-destroying past.
I’m angry that governments across the globe – including here in Australia, where we have the largest per-capita energy footprint on earth – are dragging their heels on the transition to renewables whilst green-lighting NEW coal & gas projects.
Let’s harness people power to guarantee a future for this dear planet … and ourselves.
NO MORE COAL & GAS!
CAMP’s 106-minute Sydney Opera is screening (as a large, looped video projection) on the upper level of the White Bay Power Station’s Turbine Hall from 10am to 5pm every day except Mondays, for the next three months (until 14 June 2026). Entry is free.
Pic Shaina Anand
A cast of around 25 Sydney denizens … artists, filmmakers, writers, activists, cinephiles, poets and dancers … contributed to the film.