Echoes of the Firecracker

Next date: Thursday, 29 January 2026 | 11:00 AM to 05:00 PM

Exhibition dates: 29 January to 1 March 2026

An exploration of how sound - heard, silenced, or remembered - shapes ritual, identity, and belonging across cultures.

The firecracker - a sonic emblem of the New Year - drives away evil spirits and ushers in good luck. In the diaspora, that sound is often absent, and so its absence becomes metaphor. What happens to tradition when it is silenced, banned or remembered only as an echo? The sharp bang of firecrackers, the hum of family gatherings, lion dance rhythms, temple bells and the quiet flicker of incense: these sounds mark identity, absence and adaptation. Echoes of the Firecracker meditates on how rituals are carried across time and place, what gets lost, adapted or invented anew. Drawing on Confucian and Daoist concepts of ritual (禮) and harmony (和) and informed by phenomenology, the exhibition explores how sound and rhythm shape memory, perception and the moral fabric of social life.

A Willoughby City Council exhibition curated by Monique Bedwell in consultation with independent curator Faye Chen.

Image: Cindy Chen, The Birth of Thunder, 2025, acrylic ink on Wenzhou paper

Echoes of the Firecracker is part of Chatswood Year of the Horse Festival, the North Shore’s premier Lunar New Year celebrations presented by Willoughby City Council.

When

Location

Art Space Gallery - The Concourse, 409 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood (next to Box Office), Chatswood, 2067, View Map