OPINION

I’ve always found it extraordinary that one of the oldest and most sacred landscapes on earth can find ways to innovate and feel radically new.

Uluru has stood for hundreds of millions of years – a sandstone giant shaped by time, story and Anangu law. And yet, in the past decade, it has become home to one of the most contemporary art experiences in Australia.

When Bruce Munro first installed ‘Field of Light’ in 2016, it was meant to last one year. A fleeting experiment in light against an ancient rock. Instead, it has welcomed more than 750,000 visitors and now marks a decade – proof that innovation doesn’t have to compete with heritage. It can sit gently beside it. At one point, they tried to pack it up, but travellers said no. We want to see it. We want to enjoy it. So it stayed, and people kept coming.

At dusk, when the desert cools and the sky begins its theatrical shift, the 50,000 solar-powered stems flicker into life like desert wildflowers after rain – the very phenomenon that inspired Munro in the first place. Spread across an area the size of seven football fields, it feels immersive but not intrusive. That balance matters. On Anangu Country, nothing should shout.

And yet, Field of Light is undeniably bold.

What fascinates me most is how Uluru – a place so deeply rooted in ancient Tjukurpa (creation stories) – continues to be a platform for evolving forms of storytelling. Field of Light may be modern, but it is also connected. It responds to landscape, to sky, to stillness. It invites reflection rather than spectacle. And that tension, old and new, is exactly why it works.

The 10th anniversary celebrations underscore how much the installation has grown beyond itself. There’s something fitting about taking its spirit to Melbourne, with a mural unveiled on Wurundjeri Country created by Anangu artist Valerie Brumby alongside Wurundjeri muralist Alex Kerr. The original painting heading to the Gallery of Central Australia ensures the story circles back to where it belongs.

But what’s more interesting is how this anniversary doesn’t exist in isolation. Ayers Rock Resort – operated for a little while longer by Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia before Journey Beyond takes ownership – has steadily expanded the way light and technology are used to deepen cultural engagement, not dilute it.

For another great example, take Wintjiri Wiru. Where Field of Light is a poetic response from an international artist, Wintjiri Wiru is something else entirely – a large-scale drone, laser and projection experience co-created with Anangu that shares a chapter of an ancient Mala story in the night sky. It’s technologically breathtaking, but its power lies in authorship. This is rightly, a story told by those to whom the story belongs.

Then there’s Sunrise Journeys, a female-led laser and light experience co-created by Anangu women. Again, innovation – but grounded in culture.

Comparing these experiences is revealing. Field of Light feels contemplative and personal, almost like a love letter from Munro to the desert. Wintjiri Wiru feels declarative – a cultural statement written across the sky. One is interpretive art inspired by place; the other is place speaking for itself through new tools.

And yet both rely on light.

There’s something profoundly symbolic about that. Uluru has always been about light – the way it shifts from ochre to crimson to violet as the sun moves. Long before drones or fibre optics, the rock itself was a masterclass in illumination. Maybe that’s why these experiences don’t feel forced. They feel like extensions.

When Matt Cameron Smith says Field of Light is “one of the most loved and photographed experiences in Australia,” he’s right. It’s great for ‘The Gram’, but I’d argue its deeper success lies elsewhere. It has helped redefine what cultural tourism at Uluru can look like. Not static or museum-like. But living. And that’s the real innovation.

Uluru doesn’t need modern art to remain relevant. But what the past decade has shown is that when contemporary creativity is approached with respect – when it acknowledges custodianship and collaborates rather than overrides – something powerful can happen.

An ancient monolith becomes a canvas for light. A temporary installation becomes a decade-long icon. A desert becomes a stage for both global artistry and local story.

Ten years on, Field of Light shines brighter than ever. Not because it competes with the age of Uluru, but because it understands it.

For a place that’s tens of thousands of years old in human story – and far older in geological time – that might be the most modern idea of all.