Mikala Dwyer

Phantom by Mikala Dwyer is a new public art commission for MUMA’s Ian Potter Sculpture Court.

Most active at night, Phantom is a poetic response to urgent issues surrounding Australia’s environment and how we care for it, featuring one of its most iconic animals—the endangered koala.

Known for her idiosyncratic and evocative sculptural installations, Dwyer has worked with animator Gina Moore to create a holographic-like projection of a koala for the trees of the Ian Potter Sculpture Court. Made in the wake of the 2019–20 bushfires, this work encourages the viewer to consider the effects of ecological change, what might be lost, and the need to close the gap between Indigenous and Western knowledge systems of land management.

^{Photo: Christian Capurro}