Arrivals and departures : public space, public collections, and public contests over Sydney’s waterfront history

![CDATA[‘Arrivals and Departures’ was a major temporary public art project commissioned in 2015 to activate public use of a new ‘iconic’ waterside park on Sydney’s harbor called the Barangaroo Headland, located adjacent to Circular Quay. Using shipping containers as ‘story-boxes’, the installation explored different facets of the site’s maritime history by drawing on public archive collections spanning film, projection, sound, letter writing and photography, and building on two periods of community engagement. By deliberately engaging the history and documentation of the site as a resource for contemporary storytelling, emotive reflection and experiential engagement, the installation was able to affirm a multilayered geography of recollection and belonging, using mixed media and installation design. This paper presents a practitioner-led view of how the practice of creative place-making was able to navigate institutional layers of management of an iconic city landmark, and enfold and give space to multiple competing visions over the appropriate conditions of custodianship. Affirming a dialogue between theory and practice, the paper also discusses the use of geographies of affect and embodiment as tools for storytelling and interpretation, drawing on public and community archive collections to facilitate a more open, multi-layered vision of place-narratives in urban revitalization projects.]]