From the outside, Phoenix Central Park resembles a mound of A4 paper, lying on its long edge, dimpled and curved near the centre, a sails-like tip at one end, a twisted vertical front that look like permanent waves, the entire façade, a grey, off-white surface attracting various lines and shadows casting in all directions, depending on where you stand to marvel.

Walking down Abercrombie Street in Sydney’s tiny bypass suburb of Chippendale, take a right turn, and look up to face the huge expanse of a mighty yet elegant stacked brick surface.

Phoenix Central Park

Phoenix Central Park at sunset. Photo © Trevor Mein.

Built in 2019 by two Sydney-based architect firms, the designers of this performance venue clearly possessed a cinematic language in their palate while engineering this multimedia building.

Tuesday night saw Ngiyampaa, Yuin, Bandjalang and Gumbangirr artist Eric Avery perform an expansive set on violin and vocals, invoking the sounds of his ancestral nations with inventive use of loop pedals.

Standing at the centre of the singular bell-shaped performance hall known as ‘The Nest’, Avery, a former Sidney Myer Creative Fellow, encased the room in heavy double stops, skimming the...