North South Bypass Tunnel
Client: Joint venture consortia between Leighton Contractors, Baulderstone Hornibrook and Bilfinger Berger, QLD
Landscape Architects: EDAW-AECOM
Artist: Lincoln Austin
Epificus, by Brisbane artist Lincoln Austin, is a 13 meter long stainless steel ribbon which wraps a stair tower for a pedestrian bridge in Woolloongabba, Brisbane. The overpass bridge is part of the works for the North-South Bypass Tunnel, a massive urban infrastructure project.
Epificus is a chain-like structure formed from a simple pattern of repeating modules, creating a link of strength and unity. Echoing the structures of the stair tower, bridge overpass and tunnel, the artwork symbolizes a journey between two points. Like the drawings of Escher, Epificus has multi-dimensional puzzle-like qualities, following a formal logic but deceiving to the eye. The title of the work refers to parasitical plants like the strangler fig, common to the subtropical Queensland rainforest, which attaches its form to a established host tree – a newly emergent feature within the urban jungle of Brisbane!