Animated possums on show in Carlton

Digital, animated possums are on show at University Square for the next few weeks for a temporary public art piece commissioned by the City of Melbourne.

Activated after dark, Apparition responds to University Square as a space in flux, suspended between stages of landscape redevelopment for the Metro Tunnel project.

Artist Mikala Dwyer said the holographic possums which haunted the square’s northern plaza at night were inspired by the possums that hid in the elm trees at the heart of the square.

“It is the phenomenon of storytelling that I hope to invoke through the image of a possum appearing and disappearing quietly and randomly in the night,’ Ms Dwyer said.

Ms Dwyer worked with animator Gina Moore to create the life-like movements of the digital possums onto a holo-gauze screen in the trees.

Only visible after dark, the possums shuffle around the tree before disappearing again when the sun comes up.

Ms Dwyer said the theme of the work, apparition, was chosen because they “seem to be dreamt up from a need to symbolise and make meaning out of something”.

“This apparition of possums perhaps asks the question: ‘Will you miss me when I’m gone?’” Ms Dwyer said.