An artist has staged a protest at Canberra’s high-security Russell Offices – the heavily-guarded administrative headquarters of the Australian Defence Force – and projected the word “genocide” on the towering Australian-American Memorial.

The protest – the only known activism ever to take place on Canberra’s iconic, 79m-high American Eagle – occurred on Sunday 19 January at 8.30pm and was only detected by patrolling defence personnel after the event.

The 59-year-old activist is artist Doctor Mary Lou Pavlovic, from Bowral, who used a projector to shine the word “genocide” in giant writing on to the aluminium-plated column.

Dr Pavlovic is known for her high-profile protests, including skywriting above the MCG in Melbourne in 2005 to highlight the increase in domestic violence related to the annual AFL grand finals.

Her latest protest regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict attracted the attention of defence personnel and she was asked to stop shining light on the sculpture. She was later pulled over by Australian Federal Police for a breath-test.

Prior to carrying out her planned protest, Dr Pavlovic said she sought legal advice on the use of light projections on public property.

“[They] told me all the risks that could be involved and I weighed them up and I thought it would be worth it,” Dr Pavlovic said. “I did ask them specifically about using light because I’ve noticed so many artists have done that and they said it would be difficult to prosecute on those grounds because I wasn’t defacing or changing the structure in any way.”

Dr Pavlovic said she took her inspiration for the light projection from a Polish artist, Krzysztof Wodiczko, who created a projection to protest apartheid at the South African diplomatic mission in the UK in 1985.

“I was feeling very distressed by what I was seeing on the television every night for nearly a year and I also felt that the moment should be captured somehow by artists,” she said.

“Obviously there have been protests but a lot of people have felt very frightened to say anything or don’t want to risk their careers and I think that’s really a shame because that’s not what art’s about. It’s about reflecting the times we live in.

“When art leaves the gallery and goes into the social sphere, artists can contribute images that galvanise issues.”

Dr Pavlovic said she wasn’t intimidated by protesting.

“Something in me just shuts down and just does it,” she said.

“The [defence personnel] were very friendly and they said ‘you are shining a light on defence property’ so I didn’t want to take it any further with them because I didn’t want to get into an argument with them about it. I didn’t want it to go any further.

“As I drove off, the [AFP] police pulled me over and they breath-tested me and then they took my license to do a background check.”

Dr Pavlovic has never shied away from risk and has previously taught art in Indonesian prisons. The artist established a prison art program with Renae Lawrence, an Australian woman who was convicted in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine.

“One of the things I learnt when I did that MCG project is that artists can make a contribution outside the conventional uses for art or outside of art for art’s sake,” Dr Pavlovic said.

“We can make images about issues that can help to galvanise them. So, using the American eagle with the word genocide, in the Defence headquarters of Australia, I’m not saying anything, but it says everything without saying a word.”