“Our plan was to limit the event to 500 people every half hour or any other number that was requested. We had put the idea forward that the exhibition visitors would stick to the left of a white line, and all or the coastal walk could have been a one-way system during the exhibition.
“In the end, we couldn’t guarantee the one and half metre social distancing rule would be maintained at the pinch points of the coastal walk.
“There was sympathy for the exhibition and artists but quite clearly it’s a bit too early in the COVID-19 cycle, for want of a better word, for government to be comfortable.
“The only way we could have managed contact tracing to the standard that NSW has was to have closed the coastal walk and take details of every single person who went on that walk and we didn’t want to close the coastal walk. It’s public land we share. We didn’t want that for a moment.”
Mr Handley said his greatest concern was for the more than 100 international and Australian artists had been selected to exhibit at this year’s Sculpture by the Sea who had collectively spent $1.5 million to $1.8 million on their art.
More than 30 per cent of those were to exhibit at Sculpture by the Sea for the first time, with more than 400 artists from 24 countries including Kazakhstan, India and Ecuador applying for this year’s show.
“They played ball by being ready should Sydney have been ready but those hiccups in Victoria have hurt many people across the country, not just our artists,” he said.
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In the meantime, organisers have foreshadowed the placement of a sculpture at end of the south Bondi headland in mid-November “as a beacon of hope for the future”.
An in-class program where artists visit primary and early secondary school students in Sydney and regional NSW, including some of the areas worst affected by the bushfires, will proceed.
