Sculpture By The Sea, Cottesloe returns with The Thinker by Julian Pereira and co-artist David Da Costa Enes

When Sydney-based Julian Pereira was last at Sculpture By The Sea, Cottesloe in 2012, he was working as an exhibition coordinator, able-bodied and leaving the Bondi and Cottesloe event team to pursue studies in architecture. Fourteen years later, the 42-year-old is returning to Sculpture By The Sea, Cottesloe 2026 as an artist of sculpture The Thinker, while navigating the world in a wheelchair due to a genetic neurodegenerative disorder, hereditary spastic paraplegia. “It started maybe about a year or two after I left Sculpture By The Sea where the nerves are deteriorating,” Pereira explains. “I was running around playing footy and then one season, I just found it hard to pick up my feet. My toes were dragging, and from there, slowly, my running deteriorated. Then my walking. I started using a walking stick, walking frame, mobility scooter and now a powered wheelchair. It’s just a progressive condition. It probably took about 10 years to progress from the first signs to being in a wheelchair. “It came out of nowhere because I was very active and no one in my family, alive, has it. My dad tells me that his grandfather was in a wheelchair, bedbound, but dad was so young at the time that he doesn’t really know anything more.” Pereira has since swapped architecture for running a 3D printing and design business with his brother, where he works part-time due to his disability and to allow time for other creative pursuits, including collaborating with mate David Da Costa Enes on Crosswalk This Way for Sydney’s Vivid 2022. The light installation featured pedestrian crossing lanterns where they riffed on the iconographic walking man ‘don’t walk/walk’ symbols to include the International Symbol of Access — also known as the International Wheelchair Symbol — and other poses such as dance, sing and hug. The International Symbol of Access would prove to be inspirational again after Pereira and Da Costa Enes decided to apply for their first Sculpture By The Sea Bondi in 2024. “The original idea came from when I worked at Sculpture By The Sea Bondi, where the Bondi to Bronte Coastal Walk is pretty iconic but there’s lots of stairs,” Pereira says. “When I worked there, I could run up and down the stairs, but now in a wheelchair, I can’t. So I was like, ‘How can I open up access to this thing?’” The pair used their architectural brains to design a temporary installation that would open up access for wheelchair users on the multi-level coastal walk using a series of platforms and manually-operated wheelchair lifts. Sculpture By The Sea approved the concept, accepting it into the show before Waverley Council vetoed it, twice. With two weeks left before deadline submission, Pereira and Da Costa Enes successfully pivoted their pitch to The Thinker, a manipulation of the International Symbol of Access reimagining Auguste Rodin’s most iconic sculpture. Made of corten steel, the sculpture is about accessibility, disability and advocacy. “I’m hoping it sparks conversation about accessibility, about who deserves to be in a public space and who deserves to access a beach or a coastal path,” Pereira explains. “Because, from what I’ve seen, everyone finds themselves in a position at some point in their life where access gets difficult. They might have a disability, they might have broken their foot, they might be with their parents who are more elderly and can’t walk, or they might have a pram with their child. “Not all spaces can be accessible, but if we can try to make more spaces accessible, it makes for a more inclusive society where everyone gets to participate. With this sculpture and my experience as a disabled person, I can’t change my disability, but I can change how I think about it, and I can change how I advocate for it.” After exhibiting at Sculpture By The Sea, Bondi 2024, The Thinker is heading west for Sculpture By The Sea Cottesloe 2026, the event marking the exhibition’s return after a hiatus in 2025 due to lack of funding. It will be one of 70 artworks by a selection of Australian and international artists, including more than 30 WA artists, and will feature an extended total of nine Beach Access Days, where beach matting is placed on the sand for visitors with limited mobility. The accessibility is an increase from one to three days in previous years. “When I worked there in 2012, there was zero beach matting days and it wasn’t something that I really noticed, because I was able-bodied and took this beach and sand for granted,” Pereira admits. “I’ve asked for my sculpture to be on the sand and it’s going to have beach matting going up to it for the whole exhibition, not just on the Beach Access Days, which I think is really cool.” It is a personal boundary Pereira is thrilled to be pushing, just like the one that sees him flying to Perth for the exhibition, which will be the furthest the once avid traveller has journeyed since becoming a wheelchair user. “I love Sculpture By The Sea, it just brings art to the people,” Pereira says. “I’ll be checking out those beautiful sunsets over the ocean and just navigating that world, where I was there 12 years ago as an able-bodied person, and seeing how well I can do it this time. It feels like a full-circle moment, which is kind of nice. I’m looking forward to just being there and being part of the show, from a different side as well, not as a staff member, but as an artist.” Sculpture By The Sea, Cottesloe is at Cottesloe Beach, March 6 to 23. Beach Access Days are March 11 to 19.