Fantastic Planet: What's That

Fantastic Planet: What's That
Amanda Parer (Australia)
Location: Mist Walk 

Three glowing humanoid figures, in different poses, have taken over this corner of the waterfront promenade. These illuminated beings have silently landed and begun gently exploring our Fantastic Planet.

They are curiously, quietly watching us roam. Their immense size flips our sense of scale, rendering us small — no longer the observers, but the observed.

Inspired by René Laloux's 1973 film La Planète Sauvage, where enormous beings dominate a world with feral humans, these giant figures in Fantastic Planet echo David Attenborough's warnings about humanity’s overwhelming impact on Earth: we are a species demanding more than its share.

About the artist

Amanda Parer explores mankind's complex relationship with nature. Her Tasmanian homeland provides dramatic landscapes that inspire her work. Following a transformative trip to the Galapagos Islands in 1995, while assisting on award-winning nature documentaries, she has focused on environmental themes in her work. 

Parer's oversized installations blend humour with gravity, using scale, light and darkness to make ecological topics accessible and approachable. This is an entry point to her deeper concern - environmental mismanagement by humans. 

Her work has achieved global recognition, having been featured in international exhibitions and on platforms reaching millions of viewers.