We were given a fun and unique brief to bring to life Fed Square’s unofficial mascots (Fred and Fifi), for their 2021 Christmas activation.

A Blanck Canvas designed and built these two adorably goofy Seagulls, kitted out in equally adorable ugly Christmas sweaters in this big and bright public light installation.

Standing at 4.5 metres tall these two gulls lifted the Christmas spirit and bought a bit of fun and magic to the city after COVID.

Fred and Fifi’s bodies were hand sculpted out of foam, with long steel legs leading to two overly large shoes that were made from hard coated CNC routed polystyrene. Each seagull had their personalised name painted on their shoes, as well as an induvial vividly colourful custom paint job.

We decided to create a bit of fun with this installation and got A Million Things Music involved to create an epic Christmas soundscape, that even included a quirky Melbourne specific dialogue between the two birds which was narrated by voice actors. The fun music score takes an Aussie twist to the festive classics, taking audiences on a journey through music genres, and the sounds of a Melbourne summer complete with sprinklers, crickets, and BBQ party chatter. The 30-minute looped score sees audience gather to guess the Christmas classics and listen to Fred and Fifi complain about the lack of hot chips during the holidays, when everyone goes camping, and how they simply can’t get to sleep on Christmas Eve because they’re too excited for Santa to come!

The Seagulls were engineered with a stunning lighting design, programmed by After Dark Theatre, that ran from 6pm to midnight. The works are free to visit from the 11^th of November-30^th December 2021 in Fed Square.