Big Swoop

Canberra City, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Roadside giants

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Checked by Project Big Things · Aug 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A giant Australian magpie pecking at a chip in Petrie Plaza, Civic.

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Big Swoop

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

35.27860° S, 149.13190° E

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Every spring, Australian magpies defending nests swoop people who come too close, and Canberra – a city of cycle paths, open parkland and confident magpies – has a national reputation for it. Big Swoop is the city making the joke about itself first.

The sculpture is an Australian magpie, 2.4 metres high and 3.5 metres long, built from fibreglass and steel, pecking at a hot chip. That detail is the making of it. A monumental magpie mid-swoop would be intimidating; a monumental magpie stealing food is precisely, recognisably what the birds actually do in Civic at lunchtime, and it turns the city's most complained-about wildlife into its mascot.

It was created by Canberra artist Yanni Pounartzis with sculptor Gustavo Balboa and scenic artist Ari Maack, with fibreglassing by Stuart Rowsell at Bloodhound FX. The City Renewal Authority commissioned it through its Placemaking Grants Program, and it was unveiled in 2022 in Petrie Plaza.

The ACT Government and VisitCanberra both describe it explicitly as Canberra's contribution to Australia's Big Things, which is a slightly unusual thing for a government to say out loud – most jurisdictions acquire their oversized objects by accident. Canberra went and got one deliberately, and got a good one.

It has since been nationally recognised: Australia Post included Big Swoop in a $1 coin and stamp collection celebrating ten of Australia's quirky sculptures. Not bad for a bird that was, until recently, mostly a seasonal hazard.

There is also something pointed in Canberra of all places choosing this. The city is routinely mocked from elsewhere in the country as artificial, planned and humourless – a criticism it has been hearing since it was built. Answering that with a publicly funded giant magpie stealing a chip is a fairly deft piece of self-deprecation, and considerably more effective than a defensive tourism campaign would have been.

Petrie Plaza puts it in the middle of the city's shopping and pedestrian centre rather than out among the national institutions, which is the right decision. It belongs to the working city, not the ceremonial one.

PRACTICAL

Plan your stop

WHAT TO EXPECT

ACT Government and VisitCanberra explicitly identify the 2.4 metre high, 3.5 metre long fibreglass-and-steel sculpture as Canberra’s contribution to Australia’s Big Things. The current official location is Petrie Plaza.

ACCESS

Free public pedestrian-space attraction in Petrie Plaza, Civic. Approach on foot; no attraction-specific vehicle destination is required.

COMMUNITY