The free coastal event turns 30. These are the artworks to plan your walk around before it closes on 2 November.

Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi opened on 16 October for its 30th year. It has lined the two-kilometre coastal walk from Bondi to Tamarama in Sydney with 100 sculptures by artists from 14 countries. It’s free, it runs until Monday 2 November, and organisers expect more than 450,000 people to walk it.

That’s a lot of people on a narrow clifftop path, so it pays to know what you’re walking towards. Organisers bill it as the world’s largest free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition. The anniversary edition leans on its veterans, with one artist marking a 50th show and another a 20th. It also brings in 30 artists showing at Bondi for the first time.

That mix is the real reason to go if you’ve walked it before. Here are the works worth stopping for, starting with the one that just won $70,000.

Harrie Fasher’s Unveiling the Edges of the Sky

Harrie Fasher, from Portland, NSW, took the $70,000 Aqualand Sculpture Award. Her winning work is a handmade steel-and-bronze figure, both figurative and abstract, standing six metres tall and five metres long.

It’s her sixth time exhibiting at Bondi. She has previously won the major award at Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe.

“Women make courageous work; I’d like to dedicate this prize to the women of this world – to the artists, the women who work tirelessly to bring this show to life and women who continue to keep the world turning," Fasher says.

It’s an open frame of lines rather than a solid mass. That makes the sky behind it part of the work, so the title earns its keep. If you only time one stop for sunrise or sunset, make it this one.

Keizo Ushio’s Oushi Zokei Enmusubi II

Japanese sculptor Keizo Ushio marks his 50th Sculpture by the Sea this year, counting shows at Bondi, Cottesloe and the former exhibition in Denmark. His smooth white form twists into a continuous loop above the water. It’s a meditative counterpoint to the bigger, louder works along the path.

Andre Braun’s Surface Breach

Andre Braun’s giant white hand reaches up through a stone slab, as if something below the headland is trying to get out. The title borrows a word every whale watcher knows, and from the right angle the hand seems to burst straight out of the sea behind it. It’s the work kids will remember, and the easiest photo on the walk.

Emma Anna’s DREAM_N

Colombian-born, NSW-based artist Emma Anna has spelt her title out in oversized letter tiles on the rocks above the surf, with a gap where one letter should be. What goes in the blank is left to you. Come back after dark, too: the tiles light up at twilight.

Lu Lu’s Ascent

Chinese artist Lu Lu’s Ascent is a slim, mirror-polished vertical form that reflects the sky, the swell and whoever is standing in front of it. It changes with the conditions: moody under cloud, rose-gold at dawn. It sits beside DREAM_N, so you can catch both in one stop.

Tim Storrier AM’s Wayfarer

Archibald Prize winner Tim Storrier won last year’s iShares People’s Choice Award at Bondi. He’s back for a second year running. Wayfarer is a striding figure in weathered green metal, set against open ocean. It’s the work most likely to have a queue for photos.

David Doyle’s Kaaku-Kaakulinya: Eternal Sentinels

David Doyle is the inaugural recipient of the NRMA Insurance Indigenous Artist Program, which gives $20,000 to an Indigenous artist to create an ambitious new work for Bondi. That makes this the first sculpture the program has produced. It’s a pair of rust-red upright forms standing on the sand, facing the sea.

David Horton’s Peace

David Horton is a Sculpture by the Sea veteran who won the exhibition’s major prize in 2007. Peace is a rust-coloured lattice of geometric shapes on a plinth, open enough that sea and sky show through every gap. Walk a slow circle around it and the horizon reframes itself with each step.

Nenad Milovanović’s Support IV

Serbian sculptor Nenad Milovanović has stood a stack of interlocking rust-red blocks upright on the grassy headland. Where much of the walk is light and reflective, Support IV is heavy and architectural, and the title invites you to work out which piece is holding up which. The open lawn around it also makes it one of the better spots to sit and let the crowd move past.

Ulan & Rachel’s The Guardians

NSW duo Ulan & Rachel have set a tree inside a frame, its roots exposed, with the ocean as the backdrop. It’s a quiet work on a loud stretch of coast, and the title leaves open who is guarding whom: the frame protecting the tree, or the tree standing watch over the sea. Catch it in morning light, when the sun rises behind it.

Orest Keywan’s Eastern Gate II

Orest Keywan’s history with Sculpture by the Sea goes back to its early years: he won the major prize in 1999 and again in 2006. Eastern Gate II is a slender steel structure set on the rocks. Given the title, it’s worth timing for sunrise, when the light comes straight off the Pacific and through the frame.

Look up on a Saturday

Not every work is on the ground. Stephanie Quirk’s Love will be written in the sky above Bondi Beach four times during the exhibition. It is Sculpture by the Sea’s response to the world right now, and in particular to the Bondi massacre on 14 December 2025. The remaining iterations are planned for the exhibition’s Saturdays, with 24 and 31 October still to come. Each depends on the weather.

How to see it

Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi is free and runs until Monday 2 November. The route follows the coastal walk from the southern end of Bondi Beach to Tamarama.

The path is narrow in places and weekends are the busiest. An early weekday start gives you the best light and the most room.