In this podcast you will learn how early risk planning can help you protect the creative objective, work through uncertainty, and deliver ambitious media art in public spaces.

Emily O’Brien provides risk, safety, and crowd management services for cultural organisations, festivals, and arts projects. Before specialising in these areas, she worked for around 20 years as a production manager across arts festivals, contemporary dance, theatre, and unconventional creative projects.

In this conversation, Emily explains why she believes risk management should begin with the first project discussions rather than becoming a document produced shortly before opening. She introduces structured what-if meetings as a way to identify unknowns, roadblocks, and resource requirements while there is still time to respond.

The conversation also examines the specific conditions of media art in public spaces. Audience dwell, pedestrian movement, long operating periods, power, neighbours, and unexpected increases in visitation can all affect how an artwork operates. Emily explains why an installation that becomes popular through social media may need to respond to audience patterns very different from those originally expected.

Drawing on projects including Melbourne's Flash Forward and festival installations involving fire, Emily discusses how artists, engineers, councils, and production teams can find practicable solutions together. Rather than treating risk as a reason to remove difficult elements, she argues that early collaboration can help protect both audiences and the creative intention.

Listen to this episode to learn about:

• How to introduce risk planning during the earliest stages of creative development.

• Why public-space media art requires attention to audience dwell, pedestrian movement, and changing visitation.

• How artists, engineers, and other stakeholders can develop risk controls without losing the central creative objective.

Highlights

(00:02:13) Defining risk as uncertainty around project objectives

(00:04:34) Treating the creative objective as part of risk planning

(00:07:41) Starting with a structured what-if meeting

(00:10:00) Why risk needs to be contextualised for every project

(00:10:51) Balancing time, people, and money

(00:12:51) Risk and audience dwell in public media art

(00:17:46) How social media can change visitation

(00:18:44) Using risk planning during Melbourne's Flash Forward project

(00:22:40) Bringing different stakeholders into the process

(00:26:57) Understanding actual and perceived risks around fire

(00:28:55) Designing safety controls into the audience experience

(00:31:51) Psychological hazards and changing safety practice

(00:34:06) Using AI alongside standards and professional judgement

(00:35:32) Using risk to build stakeholder support

About Emily O’Brien

Emily O’Brien is a risk, safety, and crowd management specialist working with cultural organisations, festivals, and arts projects. She previously spent around 20 years working as a production manager across arts festivals, contemporary dance, and theatre, including projects that required unconventional approaches to production.

As her practice shifted towards risk and safety, Emily completed a master's degree in crowd science and risk analysis through Manchester Metropolitan University. Her experience includes public-realm projects and festivals such as Flash Forward, Dark Mofo, Rising and Mona Foma.

Her work focuses on integrating risk thinking into project development, helping creative teams address uncertainty, crowd behaviour, safety, resourcing, and compliance while maintaining the central creative objectives of a project.

Links from the podcast

• Visit Emily O’Brien's consultancy website
• Learn more about Melbourne's Flash Forward program
• Visit the Dark Mofo website
• Visit the Rising website
• Learn more about PAC Australia
• Learn more about Creative Workplaces

In this interview, Craig Walsh explores the creative process behind Monuments. Monuments is a long-running outdoor projection project that uses projected portraits on trees to create temporary public monuments. The project began at Woodford Folk Festival in 1993, when Craig discovered how a projected portrait could align with the form of a tree and become a sculptural presence in public space.

Craig Walsh is an Australian artist known for pioneering approaches to projection, installation, and site-responsive public art. Over more than 30 years, his work has animated trees, rivers, mountains, urban architecture, and live event environments across Australia and internationally with projections.

In this conversation, Craig discusses how Monuments has evolved from early slide projections into a touring project shaped by each site and community. The structure of the work remains clear: projection, trees, night-time public space, portraiture, and temporary monument. What changes is the community, the selected people, the site, and the local meaning attached to each portrait.

Listen to this podcast to learn about:

• How Craig thinks about projection as sculpture rather than screen-based video.

• Why subtle movement can be more powerful than direct interaction.

• What artists need to consider when making media art in public space.

Chapters

(00:00:00) Working outside the gallery

(00:02:18) Projection as sculpture and installation

(00:05:42) The origins of Monuments

(00:15:18) Choosing who is represented in public space

(00:19:10) Stillness, sound and subtle movement

(00:20:31) Weather, trees and outdoor uncertainty

(00:24:17) Projection, spectacle and light festivals

(00:25:59) Touring Monuments and installation process

(00:34:20) Trust, responsibility and representing people at scale

(00:37:20) Advice for artists working with projection in public space

About Craig Walsh

Craig Walsh is an Australian artist known for pioneering approaches to projection, installation, and site-responsive public art. Over the last 30 years, his work has animated unconventional sites, including trees, rivers, mountains, urban architecture, and live event environments across Australia and internationally. His practice combines digital media, public space, and strong conceptual frameworks to create large-scale works that respond to the conditions and histories of each site. Craig has also developed major community-based projects, including Home Gwangju in South Korea, Traces—Blue in Setouchi, Japan, and FIVE with DADAA Inc. in Western Australia.

Links from the podcast with Craig Walsh

• Learn more about Monuments
• Visit Craig Walsh’s website
• Follow Craig Walsh on Instagram