Edge of the Trees, Public art sculpture at Museum of Sydney, Australia

Edge of the Trees is a collaborative installation by Janet Laurence and Fiona Foley at the forecourt of the Museum of Sydney. It consists of 29 vertical pillars of ironbark, tallowwood, steel and sandstone, clustered near the entrance. Organic materials such as hair, shell, bone, feathers, ash and honey are embedded in windows within the wooden pillars.

The installation was commissioned for the 1995 opening of the Museum of Sydney, on the site of First Government House. Its title comes from an essay by historian Rhys Maengwyn Jones describing the first encounter, when Aboriginal people watched the newcomers from the edge of the trees. The work won the 1995 Lloyd Rees Award for Outstanding Urban Design.

The 29 pillars stand for the 29 Aboriginal clans of the Sydney region. Botanical species names are carved or burnt into the wooden columns in both Latin and Aboriginal languages, alongside the signatures of First Fleeters. Place names are engraved on the sandstone pillars in Latin and Aboriginal languages.

The work stands in the forecourt of the Museum of Sydney, at the corner of Phillip and Bridge Streets, and is designed to be experienced up close rather than from a distance. Visitors are invited to touch and run their fingers along the engraved names and feel the textures of wood, steel and sandstone, and to walk between the pillars to hear the recorded Koori voices.

The pillars contain embedded materials including human hair, shells, bones, feathers, and ash that symbolize the connection between people and land. These personal elements transform the installation into a physical vessel holding human memory and continuity across generations.