Light installation uplifts Randwick laneways for night-time safety and wellbeing

Published on the 26 February 2026

Rochelle Haley, Lunar Sway, 2024. Sequence of six lighting sculptures with shifting composition of colour, light and shadow.

A five-minute walk from the final stop on the L2 Randwick light rail line, the installation lights Nurses Drive off Avoca Street and nearby Francis Martin Drive. Photo: Zan Wimberley. Courtesy the artist.

Public artwork contributes evolving light patterns and sculptural forms to promote a sense of calm for safer placemaking.

A site-specific artwork transforms laneways in UNSW’s Randwick Health & Innovation Precinct to help promote night-time safety and comfort. Lunar Sway, designed by multidisciplinary artist Dr Rochelle Haley, illuminates a corridor that connects to neighbouring campuses, restaurants and cafes, and public transport.

A five-minute walk from the final stop on the L2 Randwick light rail line, the installation lights Nurses Drive off Avoca Street and nearby Francis Martin Drive.

The sequence of six light sculptures, inspired by lunar cycles, combines light beams and elliptical orbs suspended from custom steel poles. It glows and evolves, echoing seasonal change, sunrise and sunset.

The artwork’s shifting compositions of colour, light and shadow encourage a sense of calm for health workers, visitors and local residents moving across campus at night, says Dr Haley from UNSW’s School of Art & Design.

“Pedestrian access through hospital grounds has traditionally prioritised strong white lighting to maximise visibility along key pathways,” she says.

“This doesn’t take into account the gendered experience of public lighting at night: 42% of women in NSW feel unsafe in public spaces at night.

“Spotlit in saturated light, surrounded by darkness, you can feel exposed, conspicuous and unsafe. The lighting temperature is cold, which can be upsetting to the nervous system.”

Lunar Sway offers a creative solution to improve perceptions of safety and inclusivity within the urban environment. “Hundreds of people use this public thoroughfare every day,” the practice-led researcher says.

“Lunar Sway produces uplifting, welcoming public space and enhances feelings of community, safety and inclusivity while walking or waiting. It promotes a more equitable experience of moving through campus after dark.”

Lunar Sway was commissioned as part of the Laneway Art Program by the Randwick Health & Innovation Precinct. It was funded by Transport for NSW’s Safer Cities program to improve perceptions of safety in our cities and towns, particularly for women, girls and gender-diverse people.

The 24-hour precinct is home to four hospitals and UNSW Sydney. Women comprise around 80% of the hospitals’ workforces with many working night shifts and navigating the campus streets after dark.

The installation was developed through consultation with health workers, students, patients and visitors – primarily women, girls and gender-diverse individuals – on the Randwick Hospital campus, responding to their feedback on how they use the space.

Rochelle Haley, Lunar Sway, 2024. Sequence of six lighting sculptures with shifting composition of colour, light and shadow. Photo: Zan Wimberley. Courtesy the artist.

ARUP led walking workshops to better understand what would improve their experiences, as part of the Randwick Creative Lighting Masterplan. “It prioritised the needs of these affected communities. 83% – up from 42% – of surveyed precinct staff reported feeling safe at night after its installation.”

She established key objectives with Sophie Forbat, the precinct’s Head of Arts and Placemaking, in collaboration with ARUP lighting designers Rebecca Cadorin and Ghazaleh Akhzary, who contributed expertise in gender-sensitive lighting design and co-design.

“Public art – embedding artistic methodologies and knowledges early in the design process – can help us shape the intention for, as well as our response to, public space.”

Wayfinding that supports wellbeing

Dr Haley’s multidisciplinary art practice works across painting, choreography and installation, exploring the sensory embodied experience. Her work in galleries, museums and public spaces draws attention to how bodies occupy, engage with and activate the built environment.

Lunar Sway continues her interest in light, gesture and the moving body in space and time. “I’m interested in working with the materiality, with the affect of the existing space on the body as well as adding to it.”

The artwork promotes longer sight lines – identified as important during consultation – through subtle sculptural shifts. Its low-level lighting reduces glare, “allowing you to see into the depth as well as your immediate surroundings,” she says.

Its spherical forms enhance wayfinding, offering meaningful landmarks. “I wanted to … draw people’s attention to what was above them, instead of that typical experience of looking behind oneself when you’re walking alone at night.

“It’s also a political gesture that responds to societal constraints and gendered expectations – that feeling of vulnerability or discomfort that makes us look down – that moves to reclaim that sense of belonging and autonomy.”

The installation’s cyclic nature encourages mindfulness, she says. “We know that mindfulness, appreciating natural beauty, aesthetic experiences, is so important for mental health and wellbeing.”

The laneway has an east-west corridor of open sky. “This is quite unusual in middle of the city. The changes in colour and luminosity respond to its dynamic nature, pulsing slowly in a breath-like rhythm.”

Lunar Sway offers a creative solution to improve perceptions of safety and inclusivity within the urban environment. Photo: Zan Wimberley. Courtesy the artist.

The lighting “scenes” run continuously, modulating through vibrant, energetic colours (emulating sunset) to a more subdued moon-like palette (at dusk and pre-dawn) growing more vivid again in the morning (sunrise). During the day, the lights are at a very dim level, “almost as if they are at rest”.

“The programming is synced to an online calendar that changes also with the equinox and the season,” she says. “It reimagines and reflects the human connection to the night sky, to the universe, and to each other despite our different viewpoints and experiences.”

A light on top of each pole projects a beam of coloured light onto the floor below. Together the two light sources form circular shapes on the ground to create an eclipse-like effect; when a body moves through the space, passing in front of light, it produces crescent-shaped shadows.

“It’s immersive – the artwork’s limits stretch beyond the lighting infrastructure to the bodies moving through it, to the landscape and beyond.”

These organic forms both reference and comfort the body, itself bathed in light, she says. “[The] spaces we use to transition into and out of work modes are a chance to reset our focus, a moment to take a breath to ground ourselves.

“One woman who’d been a nurse for more than 30 years shared that she often sits in her car near the installation at the end of a shift and just watches it, and breathes, and calms for 10 or 15 minutes after the hyper-vigilance of the hospital, before she drives home.”

Providing an impetus for reflection through public art

In 2025, Dr Haley was commissioned to build on her public artwork within the Randwick Hospital Campus with a large-scale mural, funded by Transport for NSW’s Community Improvement District program.

New Moon Rising is an acrylic mural painted across two walls on Francis Martin Drive. The laneway, a popular community shortcut across campus, has not always felt like the most welcoming space, users reported. “The mural extends on the palette and motifs of Lunar Sway to extend its affect.”

On the north side, the mural depicts spherical forms stacked to insinuate a standing figure, or a planet, or a sun rising beyond the horizon. “Again, the mural builds that connection with the natural world, with the expanse of sky,” she says.

The circular motifs also reference vertical elements of the built environment around the mural, she says. “I wanted to take into account the experience and perception of space as we walk through the laneway.”

The mural is painted in bright colours, the strongest being cadmium yellow which is vibrant even at night. “It’s really visible from a distance. The mural is an invitation – especially for women and girls and gender-diverse people – to look up at and engage with the physical and built environment.

“To see the moon and sun connected by light, dancing together across space and time, this beautiful relationship that exists between things that are very far apart.”

In this way, her public artwork contributes to a greater sense of social cohesion. “These are ideas we’re all connected to, even if we don’t have a lot of experience with the arts and cultural sector,” she says.

“Everybody has a connection with the night sky, everybody enjoys a sunset, and everybody wants to feel safe in public spaces. Taking a moment to appreciate the aesthetic experience of moving through space can do so much to uplift our health and wellbeing and build community and belonging.”