Set against the pulse of Naarm's cityscape, the Evan Walker Bridge will shimmer with red light and sound, carrying with it the stories of ancestry, migration and resilience.

This year's Now or Never festival features the most ambitious work yet from acclaimed Bidjara and Chinese-Australian artist, Dr Christian Thompson AO: Burdi Burdi (Fire Fire).

Adapted from New Gold Mountain (2021), a series inspired by Dr Thompson's late grandmother, Harriet Woods, the new installation transforms the bustling pedestrian bridge into an open-air sonic and sculptural experience.

Dr Thompson recalls that the earlier series "looked at my Chinese-Australian Gold Rush heritage," as a way of telling "my grandmother's story".

"Bringing both of those intersections of my visual heritage and also my Chinese-Australian heritage together in one body of work," they tell National Indigenous Times.

"And part of that series was a sound work called Burdi Burdi — which means fire fire — that I presented a year later as part of Melbourne Now."

That version, staged as a red-lit room of immersive quadraphonic sound, placed the colour red — long associated with joy, celebration and good fortune in Chinese culture — at its heart.

"I was kind of trying to find a way to kind of integrate my grandmother's story and tell that part of my intersections of my own background," Dr Thompson says.

"It's really special to be able to present my work in this way, in such a landmark space in the centre of Melbourne."

Now, Burdi Burdi returns in an expanded form, spilling out across the Yarra/Birrarung. The bridge itself becomes the artwork: illuminated in vivid red, resonant with sound, a quiet space of remembrance and reflection.

"It will be turned into an outdoor, immersive light and sound installation as people cross over the bridge," Dr Thompson says. "The whole bridge is illuminated bright red. And so this work is really a kind of homage to my grandmother and her story."

The installation sits in tension with the surrounding city: modern glass and concrete meeting ancient stories and symbols.

"I think it also kind of reads as such a kind of symbolic kind of color," Dr Thompson says. "Colour of power, protection, of abundance, of healing, of prosperity."

Threaded through the work are two recurring motifs: fire and gold. Fire, as ancestral energy and survival. Gold, as memory of migration and promise, tied to the journeys of Chinese miners who once named the Australian Goldfields Xin Jin Shan — New Gold Mountain.

"That reference to New Gold Mountain or Xin Jin Shan — was what the early miners that were brought over from southern China referred to the Australian Gold Rush," Dr Thompson says.

"So gold is a kind of recurring theme of the kind of sort of reference to our Chinese Gold Rush heritage."

The piece is, ultimately, an invitation to pause in the rush of the city and reflect on deeper histories.

"I think that it's a moment for people to consider the quite multicultural and quite complex intersections of our recent colonial history," Dr Thompson notes.

"I feel grateful to have my work recognised and celebrated and to be able to share it with the audience in this way."

Now or Never will take place in Naarm from Thursday, 21 – Sunday, 31 August. More than 285 local and international artists and creatives will take over iconic Melbourne venues and public spaces, including 30 new commissions making their Melbourne premiere.

Burdi Burdi, the installation by Dr Christian Thompson AO, is across the Evan Walker Bridge from 6pm — 11pm nightly and is free to visit.