Papers on Parliament No. 60
March 2014
Robyn Archer "Re-imagining the Capital*"
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The winner of the 1911 international competition for the
design of a new capital city for the new Commonwealth of Australia having been announced
in 1912, and subsequent revelations of the interference of the department in
the original design later that year having been made known to the winner,
Walter Burley Griffin of Chicago wrote to King O’Malley in January 1913:
I had entered this Australian event to be my first and last
competition, solely because I have for many years greatly admired the bold
radical steps in politics and economies which your country has dared to take,
and which must, for a long time, set ideals for Europe and America ahead of the
possibility of their accomplishment.
Griffin’s perception of the new city was that it would be a
symbol of this bold new Commonwealth, as both a national and international
entity.
While much of the 2013 year-long celebration of the city’s
naming on 12 March 1913 has been in Canberra itself, and by, with, and for
Canberrans, there was always a view to the celebration of the national and
international dimensions of Canberra. Indeed, the celebration has been
ultra-local, regional, national, international, and very soon will also be
extra-terrestrial, as a flag bearing the Centenary of Canberra logo will be
taken by a Japanese astronaut into outer space.
In fact, I will begin with the logo, as there is a national
aspect to its origin. Four years ago, we invited recent graduates and young
professionals, at least one from every state and territory, to participate in a
workshop to develop a new logo. These young professionals experienced an
excellent induction into both the physical and symbolic realities of their
national capital. Mentored in the task by His Excellency, Mr Michael Bryce,
architect and designer of several very successful Australian logos, they came
up with terrific ideas which resulted in a brand marker which has worked very
well for us ever since. Its incorporation of Griffin’s circles and triangles,
and a 1913 font, yielded a sunny energy that still, for me, reflects that group
of bright young designers. A number of these young Australians came to the
capital for the first time, with the predictable prejudices of those who have
only heard about it second or third hand, and often from those who have never
been to the capital, or perhaps visited 30 years ago or more, when it was still
in its infancy. Some had received worn-out messages that there was nothing to
do, no young people—a barren place, which I imagine was not even true in the
pioneering frontier-town days.
Having freshly experienced the capital as it was in 2009 (it
has already changed in the last four years), their opinions altered
dramatically. One of the participants said ‘If Canberra is blank, then
it’s a blank canvas on which we can draw ourselves in any way we want’.
He and his young colleagues learnt quickly that even though
Canberra may indeed appear empty on the occasional, cold, high country night,
this is a superficial impression; they became convinced of the richness
beneath, in the history of the capital, in its collections and achievements,
and to what extent all that can be drawn on for inspiration and fresh
innovative content.
This also emerged as an emphasis of the Australian Theatre
Forum which was hosted by the Centenary this year and which drew eager
participants from all over the country. The collections here were acknowledged
as rich resources for further creativity, not just in theatre, but for film,
dance, literature and the visual arts.
Taking the time to invest in more than a superficial scan
inevitably leads visitors to the conclusion that this capital, like other
national capitals, represents an invaluable asset, not only in the cultural
treasures it holds on behalf of the Australian people, but in encouraging
participatory democracy via an understanding of the high ideals, vast
aspirations, and history of achievement in arts and science (those two
mainstays of article 27 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human
Rights) upon all of which the capital has been built. And that asset is
precious. Let me reference just one of the reasons why.
During the lead up to this year’s Centenary, the Australian
Financial Review published the results of a survey of young Australians who
were asked about systems of government. Oddly, and worryingly, in an age when a
kind of cultural democracy is all-pervasive (you can vote on anything as your
favourite film, piece of music, performer etc and you can blog your views to
the world—to hell with expert opinion), a number of these young Australians
said they did not particularly value democracy—and that another system might
serve Australia just as well. This is quite different for young new
Australians, many of whom seek residence or asylum here precisely because of our democratic system and the belief that they might get a fair go. But if
there is complacency in young, second, or longer generation Australians, then I
believe that strong signs and symbols of democracy are important, and believe
that the national capital is well placed to provide them.
Much of this was discussed in our National Press Club
conversation, ‘The Future Journey of Democracy’, a collaboration between the
Centenary and the Canberra Multicultural Community Forum, and moderated by the
ABC’s Geraldine Doogue. There was a simultaneous conversation, both gatherings
linked by satellite, at Federation Square in Melbourne, for the festival I direct
there, The Light in Winter. The voices heard were Australian voices of diverse
cultural background: Indigenous Australian, Muslim, Somalian, Iranian, Indian,
Burmese, Greek, and many more. A valuable understanding quickly occurred, that
the tools of democracy are already different throughout the world, and
that the concept of democracy needs to be flexible enough to morph, in order to
meet the needs of new and evolving democracies in places like North Africa,
Burma, and Somalia, and even countries like India whose enormous population
still struggles to achieve more effective participatory democracy. The key was
thought to be ‘inclusion’, and one of our many challenges in nurturing and
maintaining effective democracy is to ensure that these kinds of conversations,
especially those which include the culturally diverse voices of
Australia, replace the complacency which clearly dominates the social and
political engagement (or lack thereof) amongst any number of Australians,
certainly not just young Australians, whose democratic
responsibilities are often neglected.
This focus on national symbolism has long been part and parcel
of what the PACER (Parliament and Civics Education Rebate) program does
annually for around 160,000 Year 6 schoolchildren from all round the county.
For these young people, as for many recent new Australian residents, the
capital makes for an inspirational visit. The curiosity they display at the
Museum of Australian Democracy, and the obvious awe and respect they feel at
the Australian War Memorial, are two of the more obvious signs that the
capital’s symbolic role is functional and powerful.
One of the ongoing projects which has reached far further than
the borders of the ACT is the Canberra Diaspora. This project acknowledged the transitory
nature of a national capital in which, for more than one hundred years, there
has been a continuous process of movement in and out: from Indigenous
habitation and ceremonial meeting and pilgrimage to the higher country, to
pastoralists who then had to be moved on, then surveyors, engineers, builders
and all the service-providers that entails, to Defence personnel, medical
professionals, scientists, educators, students, politicians, public servants,
diplomats, artists and sportspersons and at any time the 25 per cent of the
population which comes from a non-English-speaking background. We appealed
particularly to those who had been here, had served and made their contribution
and gone again. The dedicated website has stories from all over Australia and
the world, and I quote just one in support of arguing the importance of the
symbolic role of the capital.
Jacqui Martin now lives in Melbourne and at the time she
uploaded her video she was head of marketing at La Trobe University. If you go
to the website you will see she describes very funny stories about her first
two trips to Canberra—both times vowing she would never return again. On the
third visit she was strong-armed to the War Memorial for the first time, and
she describes turning around in the tomb of the unknown soldier—looking down
Anzac Parade across Lake Burley Griffin, to old Parliament house, to new
Parliament House and says: ‘I actually burst into tears, and it was the first
time in my forty something years of being in Australia that I really knew what
it meant to be Australian’.[*]
There is a massive unrealised potential for the capital to be
seen and used even more in this way. I suggest that, paradoxically, one of the
biggest thorns in the side of such ambition is the tendency for some of those
involved in political life, both politicians and press, to diss Canberra for
very dubious and ill-considered reasons. I will say a bit more about that
later, but would add now that I also believe the whingeocracy is probably, in
any case, in its decline, since for younger generations and more recent
Australian citizens, this is where the capital is, and does,
happily for them and for many of us, have the kind of symbolic status demanded
of a capital.
With regard to young visitors, I should add that Canberra has
welcomed many more young people from all over Australia this year. To mention
just a few, the Tournament of Minds national finals saw hundreds of bright
youngsters engaged in finding performative solutions to complex challenges, and
the Youth Parliament again considered the big issues for Australia. In the
sporting domain, major gatherings such as the Kangaroo Cup and Special Olympics
swimming added participatory sports to the capital’s special Centenary elite
sporting program (for which the Australian Institute of Sport is the national
centre). At the other end of the age scale, in the participatory stakes, the
many Masters events held in Canberra this year demonstrated an enthusiasm for
holding signature national competitions in the capital. Record numbers were
recorded for many, including the Masters rowing event on Lake Burley Griffin,
wildly under-rated it seems for such purposes. Not so, with Mt Stromlo, now
rated as the home of mountain-biking in Australia; and how good it was to hear
Canberran Caroline Buchanan named as Australian Cyclist of the Year 2013.
In that elite sporting realm, Canberra proved itself to be a
successful host to major international events. Golf Australia is now quoted as
saying that the Handa Women’s Australian Open, here for the first time at Royal
Canberra Golf Club, was the best ever. The first ever international cricket
match held in Canberra’s history (hard to believe, but true), between Australia
and the West Indies, under brand spanking new lights at Manuka, was a sell-out
success. Similar crowds and expertise in production and delivery were reported
for the Australia and New Zealand rugby league test, the Brumbies v. British
and Irish Lions and the netball test. Add in all those Masters events, plus the
national Indigenous golf competition, and together they demonstrate the
capacity for the capital to host a wide range of major events, not for the
pleasure of Canberrans alone, but as a sign of the increasing sophistication of
this still young city, and of the well-rounded culture of this place. In the
past, Canberra has been falsely represented as nothing but politicians
and public servants, but one of the many legacies of 2013 will be some powerful
busting of that outdated myth.
That Canberra has the liveliest and most participatory
sporting community per capita in Australia is important for Australians to
understand about their capital. That it has a lively and active Indigenous
community which continues to preserve and expand traditional culture and
practices is also important for Australians to understand. How many were aware
prior to this centenary year and the profile it has created, that within 40
minutes drive from their capital, and within the ACT borders, we can view
ancient rock art and hear the stories of those who once traveled long distances
to observe law in the high country, to understand craft and food gathering
practice, and how the land was cared for.
The enthusiasm and support across the board, of both
Canberrans and the record number of visitors to the capital this year, surely
justifies ambitions not only for first-class sports facilities in the capital,
but also new performing arts facilities (this is the role that the Kennedy
Centre plays in Washington), and that place called the Australian Forum, where
the biggest and boldest ideas are debated. I would argue, as a South
Australian, that these are not local facilities for the benefit of Canberrans
alone, but constitute infrastructure, I hope undeniably excellent in
architectural ambition, which strengthens the capital and makes us ever prouder
of the way in which it symbolises our noblest aspirations—in arts, sports,
ideas, science, research and innovation of all kinds.
In that case, these projects demand federal government
participation, and at the same time they enable the continuing development of a
city which Walter and Marion Mahony Griffin imagined one hundred years ago, and
as Prime Minister Andrew Fisher expressed at the time:
Here, on this spot, in the near future, and, I hope, the
distant future too, the best thoughts of Australia will be given expression to,
both in legislative and administrative acts. I hope this City will be the seat
of learning as well as of politics, and it will also be the home of art.[†]
The federal government’s generous contribution to the new
National Arboretum Canberra already ensures an enduring legacy of the centenary
year, one which is beyond the ambitions of political terms and indeed beyond
the ambitions of any single lifetime: it will be at its best 100 years from
now. I hope that one of the over-arching legacies will be the stimulus of a
continuing collaboration between the federal and territory governments to allow
this young city to continue to mature, for the benefit of all Australians.
While the capital has been enriched throughout 2013 by a
program which has celebrated the history and the achievements of this still
young city, its present capabilities, capacities and rich cultural landscape,
its symbolic role as the seat of federal government, and thus its connection to
the nation and the world, have also been firmly in mind, and ever present
throughout the year.
A priority in programming was Indigenous content. I detailed
this content in my Schuman Lecture in July this year and it can be found online
at canberra100.com.au and also at the ANU’s Centre for European Studies. The
program demonstrated not only the richness of local Aboriginal culture, and
allowed many local traditional stories to be told and talent to be profiled,
but saw Indigenous Australians from all over the country welcomed here and
meeting local communities—they came from Roeburne in the Pilbara, from Elcho
Island and the Torres Strait Islands, East Arnhem Land, Central Australia,
Brisbane, Melbourne, New South Wales and South Australia.
This was a vast and rare program, made possible by the federal
government’s contribution to the Centenary program, and included Seven
Sisters Songlines, a collaboration with the ANU’s Diana James as part of a
huge survey of performative and visual representation of this story which is
told, sung, danced and painted by Indigenous Australians across a vast sweep
from west to east coasts. These collected representations are building to an
even more comprehensive survey in future years, and we were honoured to support
one of the first major manifestations, directed by Wesley Enoch, Stradbroke
Island man, and first Indigenous artistic director of a state theatre company
(Queensland). The performances were held at the National Museum of Australia
which holds within its architecture the symbolic red line which points us
directly to Central Australia whence this particular version of the story and
its owners and performers came.
Acknowledgement of original habitation and custodianship for
tens of thousands of years constituted an appropriate prelude to a celebration
of the energy and activity of the last one hundred.
In a nod to the original quest for a site for the new capital,
we ensured the inclusion of the borders in an early salute to the surveyors,
and to the ACT’s ‘unmade edges’ in community artist projects at Tharwa,
Uriarra, Hall, Pialligo, Oakes Estate and Stromlo. The surrounding region has
also seen activity, acknowledged by the Centenary, in Goulburn (for the 150th
anniversary of their status as Australia’s first inland city), Queanbeyan in
its 175th year, Leeton (also designed by Walter Burley Griffin and celebrating
100 years in 2013), Yass, the Snowy Mountains, Bega and Jervis Bay, while the
Wreck Bay community presented a superb exhibition Windsongs and Waterlines at Canberra Museum and Gallery and Lanyon.
Beyond the borders and nearby sites (many of which were
candidates around 1910 for the new capital), the connections to regional Australia
have been significant. Because of the role I undertook here, as Creative
Director of the Centenary of Canberra, I have had to learn and understand much
more about Canberra and its history, present and future. I first visited
Canberra, often, but fleetingly, for family reasons; but since my second
Canberra phase, a much deeper encounter with the place twenty years ago, I
understood that whatever opinion might be expressed outside, possibly in
ignorance of the real Canberra, the minute they are invited to the capital
there is a sense of pilgrimage, and, whether in celebration or in protest, by
invitation or intent, a sense of occasion. Since the time when Canberra gave me
the priceless opportunity to add another string to my professional bow, that of
artistic and creative direction, I have understood that to be invited to the
capital just to join a meeting, or to come here to lobby and persuade is a
matter of pride to any Australian. There is an instant sense that one’s ideas,
one’s work, one’s life matters on a national scale.
Any artist I invited to participate in the National Festival
of Australian Theatre was intensely proud to show their work here: and so it
was this year for all those companies which comprised Collected Works:
Australia, the Canberra Theatre Centre’s 2013 subscription program, which
included works from every state and territory in the country.
This season included multi-Helpmann Award winning The
Secret River which was co-commissioned by the Centenary of Canberra, along
with the Sydney Theatre Company and the Sydney and Perth festivals. It also
included Circa’s Wunderkammer from Queensland, Shrine from Black
Swan in Perth and Big hART’s Hipbone Sticking Out from Roeburne, As
We Forgive from Tasmania, Thursday from Brink in South Australia,
Bell Shakespeare’s Henry 4, which premiered in Canberra, and for which
John Bell was a Helpmann Award nominee, Ilbijerri Theatre Company’s Jack
Charles v. The Crown from Victoria, Home at the End from the ACT and Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui, the first ever theatre show from the
Tiwi islands.
State and territory governments contributed generously to
ensure this remarkable season. It spoke volumes for the challenges we continue
to face in touring the very best of our theatrical and choreographic endeavours
for the pleasure and enlightenment of all Australians. We produce so much good
work, and tell so many superb stories in such skilled and awe-inspiring ways,
yet fail to ensure that the best of this creative endeavour is shared with all
Australians: their efforts are largely confined to local seasons only. One of
the many enthusiastic reviews of The Secret River declared it
‘unmissable’: yet even with sold-out seasons in only three cities, most
Australians will never see it. The season for Canberra’s Centenary displayed
the quality of the national wealth of performing arts which could be shared
annually with so many more, if we could establish an effective and suitably funded
touring mechanism—at very least to all capitals, if not regional centres as
well.
The flipside of that national coin is, of course, the
nurturing, encouragement and profiling of the creativity arising from the
regions themselves. One of the most profound connections we made between the
regions and the capital was via a project called One River, also made possible
by the federal government’s assistance. You can still explore this project by
searching One River online: the website will be archived by the National
Library of Australia for at least the next five years.
The project evolved from the moment I learned that Canberra is
the biggest city in the Murray–Darling basin, and that the Murrumbidgee River
runs through the ACT to join the waters which eventually flow to the mouth at
Goolwa. The reality of this mighty river system provided a way for Canberra to
unite four states and a territory during the centenary year.
My motivation for the project came from a personal place of
long-held affinity with the river. My mother was born on the banks of the
Murray at Cadell, where her father operated the Cadell–Morgan punt. I have been
aware of the river and its people all my life. On my father’s side, my late
aunt had once been the Mayor of Goolwa and I had been aware of the silting
issues at the mouth for many years. I had a mentoring role for some years at
the Mildura–Wentworth Arts Festival, and was aware of the pain which
diminishing and inconsistent water allocation issues caused. I had a heartfelt
pull to river issues, and for the first time, unexpectedly, the Centenary of
Canberra gave me the opportunity to create a conversation wider and deeper than
the divisive question of water allocation.
This meta-project linked many individual projects the length and
breadth of the Murray–Darling through Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT,
Victoria and South Australia. In this respect it means the debunking of another
myth about the national capital—that it is remote. What other city can claim
such physical links to four states and a territory?
The project also demonstrates the liveliness of remote
communities throughout the system, and these are evident on the website. The
main focus of the project eventuated in 10 artist projects—in Augathella,
Mitchell, Bourke, Canberra, Narrandera, Sandigo and Boree Creek, Lakes Mungo,
Hattah and Hawthorn, Mildura–Wentworth, Albury–Wodonga, Murray Bridge and
Goolwa–Murray Mouth. These projects have demonstrated the power of the arts to
connect communities and to allow stories to be told and shared in lively,
creative and engaging ways. Thousands of river people have been involved.
An installation, Treasures of the River, in Augathella,
saw a call-out from schoolteacher and emerging artist Joanna Sutton for
historical photographs from residents in the district. Working with students,
Joanna in turn turned a selection of these photographs into postcards and
mounted them as a large-scale installation. The project brought this small
community together, to relish the artwork, to appreciate the presence of the
artist in their town, and to add value to an appreciation of where they live.
The local tourist information office is going to sell the packaged cards and
there has been a subsequent geocaching project to uncover the secrets of the
Warrego. The artist told me, with genuine passion, that the project had brought
her and her husband into contact for the first time with a comprehensive range
of the community who had been keen to show their photos and have the
conversation.
The conversation was also extended to experts in a series of
symposia which included water experts, and beautiful films made by Malcolm
Mckinnon—all of which can be found on the website.
Artist Jude Roberts worked with residents in Mitchell, to
place large stretches of paper at the waterline of the Maranoa River. The water
itself made the marks, all different at different sites, and these huge scrolls
eventually became the materials for beautiful installations, both abstract yet
at the same time singing a highly local, authentic and organic song. These were
seen in Mitchell, the Maranoa Gallery and Canberra.
These projects all, but all, demanded conversations
with many locals; they all proved to be galvanising for their communities. More
importantly, all those artists (plus family or friends) gathered in Canberra at
Belconnen Arts Centre where they were able to talk with each other and see
evidence of each other’s project. This links to the previous point about
distance and the arts. It may not be well understood that this kind of
gathering is a rarity in Australia: time and distance inevitably prevents the
majority of our artists from ever seeing the work of other artists and, more
importantly, meeting and talking with them. Linked-up projects like this, as
well as genre-specific festivals provide a vital platform for the understanding
and advancement of our artists and their work. Taking advantage of the digital
age can also assist in this. An effective and wide-reaching national broadband
network could offer multiple enhanced opportunities for connecting to projects,
process, outcomes and dialogue in real time.
In this project, a shared notion of river life was palpable
and respectful, and CEO of the Murray–Darling Basin Authority, Dr Rhondda
Dickson, said that they would no doubt draw on these projects and the notion of
shared values and memories in their ongoing work. This project makes a positive
contribution to many and varied communities who have been perceived and
portrayed for so many years as embattled, yet have so much in common.
One of the key figures in the creative team was Malcolm
Mckinnon who reported:
Above all, the experience of working on ONE RIVER prompted me
to think, as I frequently do, about the disconnect between, on the one hand,
the deeply rooted and often heartfelt ‘common wisdom’ of people whose lives are
truly connected with the rivers in some way or another and, on the other, the
abstracted and politicized realm of public policy and planning. This, for me
and for so many of the people I encountered in my travels across the basin,
constitutes one of the great conundrums and great frustrations and it raises of
course the inevitable question of where do we look for leadership and
inspiration. At a political level, my experience working on the project made
painfully evident, once again, the negative impacts of parochial state
governments in the management of an ecosystem spanning multiple jurisdictions.
Aside from that, I was moved by the enormous generosity of
people willing to share their stories with a complete stranger, and the
openness of people to talk about places they cared deeply about and to embrace
the opportunity for storytelling that the project presented.
We must bear in mind, that these were artist projects
that happened through the Centenary of Canberra program, which had a care for,
and an eye to, the country as a whole. There are lessons to be learnt about the
power of the arts to tell the most important stories, and tell them in a way
which strikes a chord, not just with art lovers, but with anyone who can
be drawn into the content of those projects. In the case of One River, a long
string of river communities were drawn, through the arts, into reflections on
their place, their history, present and future. Nothing could be more important
for participation in the democratic process than to understand country, and to
connect as community.
There was a subsequent event of importance under the One River
banner. A ceremony at dusk, on the banks of the Murrumbidgee, within ACT
borders, saw the sharing of song and dance between traditional custodians of
that land, Paul House and the Ngambri dancers and Ngarrindjeri elder Major
Sumner and the Tal-kin-jeri Dancers, from the mouth of the Murray around
Goolwa. The tangible connection between the two places was made movingly
manifest when the southerners offered a whale dance, and we realised that
whales will eventually swim in the water we saw running fast and clear in the
Murrumbidgee that evening. In an interview, Major Sumner, who has also danced
the Darling in the past, described a tradition that goes back millennia, which
had vanished after European occupation, but has not been lost forever:
It’s a long ways, but our people were involved in ceremonies,
including the Murrumbidgee, all the rivers that connect up to the Murray and
the Darling and all the water from here eventually gets down to our country …
So ceremonies were right along the rivers and all we are doing is putting the
energy back in and getting the ceremonies going again.[‡]
The One River project was launched in November 2012 as part of
Goolwa’s City of Culture program, and at that time, Ngnunnawal ranger and
cultural adviser Adrian Brown had been south to meet Major Sumner (known as
Uncle Moogy) for the first time, and began then to learn something about that
country. The River Ceremony emerged from that meeting, and via One River. The
lessons for future pathways to genuine processes of reconciliation are
many—they require respect for the protocols demanded and the individuals
involved, they simply need the long time it really takes, and the best results
often occur through arts and culture, which are an integral part of Indigenous
Australian life, not a luxury leisure, as they can still be regarded by some
Australians. As Central Australian Senior Law Woman Inawinytji Williamson said
of the Seven Sisters Songlines project:
This is how we look after strongly this big important
creation story and teach the young ones who come after us so that they can look
after it in their turn and teach their children, the many to follow.[§]
This was a theme that emerged throughout the Indigenous
program—most recently through a small project to allow ACT local Duncan Smith
and his Wiradjuri Dancers to develop the Biami creation story beyond
just song and dance, to a theatrical form for children. It had its first
showing at the Centenary’s Children’s Festival in Glebe Park and its potential
is solid.
As examples of further exchange on the national and
international basis, elders from Roeburne had come to Canberra for a
development phase of the Big hART work Hipbone Sticking Out. In the
rehearsal rooms of the Canberra Theatre Centre, I saw that group of elders and
youngsters share song and dance with Duncan and his family. The indefatigable
choreographer Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, whose company Mirramu and its studio
sit at the edge of Lake George, created Morning Star with longtime
collaborator, Torres Strait Islander dancer Albert David, and invited East
Arnhem Land dancers, including the great dancer and songman Djakapurra
Munyarryun, to join them. They premiered the work at the National Gallery of
Australia, and presented excerpts as part of Canberra’s big birthday bash
around the lake on 12 March. More recently, excerpts have been seen in Taiwan
where Elizabeth has long-established connections.
There has been more to all this than is understood when one
simply claims a huge and comprehensive Indigenous Cultural Program. I might
just add that Canberra resident, and a member of the Centenary of Canberra’s
informal Indigenous Cultural Reference Group, Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello, had
a remarkable year: with a brilliant exhibition at the Canberra Glassworks and
work also featured at the ANU and at the Canberra Museum and Art Gallery; the
awarding of a prestigious two-year Australia Council Fellowship at the Red
Ochre Awards presented at the Sydney Opera House; and ultimately winning the
overall 2013 Telstra Indigenous Art Award presented in Darwin. What a
remarkable list of achievements in just one year. Also in this year, Indigenous
media have really shone: the support our program had from the National
Indigenous Times and NIDTV exceeded expectations.
In other programs of national significance, the Museum of the
Long Weekend saw vintage caravans driven from 40 different spots around the
country to meet on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra. They came
from as far afield as Roeburne in the Pilbara, from Cairns, and from the south
of Tasmania. This was a joyous gathering of beautiful vintage vehicles, many of
which had been curated by artists to tell tales of the caravaners and their
long weekends and longer journeys. The décor of 40s, 50s and 60s was exquisite.
Again, these people talked to each other, visited each other’s caravans and
shared stories. This is very much the ethos of caravaning life.
It was pure pleasure for those of us who have such a romantic
notion of a caravan life we have never experienced ourselves—we have perhaps
just observed our parents or aunts and uncles and grandparents live that
particular dream. But Scott Rankin, Artistic Director of Big hART, the
remarkable company which produced this project, has a deeper philosophical
underpinning of the project. He believes that, in this era of the apparent
necessity of ever-increasing productivity, many governments and businesses neglect
the positive values of leisure; that nation-building happens just as
effectively at rest, as at hard-bitten hard-nosed ‘work’. There are, of
course, multiple examples of the truth of this: Walt Whitman quietly wandered
the woods, and came back to write the wise words that would influence millions
thereafter, including Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin, and their plans
for this capital city. Canberra still sits within a green landscape very much
because of the kind of philosophies which Whitman and others espoused.
British composer Edward Elgar wandered endlessly in his nearby
forests, then sat down and wrote almost perfectly, with few alterations, the
entire melodic lines, and orchestrations, which he had imagined in the wilds,
of musical works which became emblematic for Britain. These are nation-building
moments which began with the creativity of artists not at their desks or in
their studios, but wandering in nature.
I think we all know of ourselves, and certainly it is true for
me, that the best ideas come flooding in at unexpected moments of relative
emptiness in the mind. When the mind is cluttered and over-busy, genuine
creativity rarely emerges. Scott has a great point. And for all the focus on
family, in an age when the concept of consistent stable nuclear families is so
challenged by the reality of family breakdown and breakup, why would we not look more carefully at the exquisite bonding, as well as the learning, which
always occurs on a good holiday. This ability to relax, to talk together round
the fire at night, is surely an important factor in the development of healthy
and engaged societies—something we would wish for all our citizens, yet so
obviously absent for so many driven in a work-work-work society. This simple
device, a project around caravans, stimulates profound considerations for
national life.
National institutions played an important role in celebrating
Canberra’s Centenary, not only the National Gallery of Australia and the
Australian War Memorial, but the Mint, the Australian National Botanical
Gardens, the Royal Military College Duntroon, the National Portrait Gallery
which made huge efforts to connect its themes to the chronologically themed
sequence of the centenary year, and perhaps most significantly the National
Museum of Australia, with its Glorious Days: Australia 1913, the
National Australian Archives with its Design 29 and the National Library
of Australia with Dream of a Century: The Griffins in Australia.
The Museum of Australian Democracy continues to present its
year-long Art of Influence, and amongst many other exhibitions allowed
us to see Arthur Boyd through a new political perspective. And this Parliament House celebrated its 25th year, especially through the beautiful
publication Interwoven, by Pamille Berg who had originally commissioned
the art and craft for this house, and through Monument, a ballet
commissioned by the Centenary of Canberra from the Australian Ballet to
celebrate this anniversary. The work was choreographed by Garry Stewart, and designed
by Mary Moore (both from Adelaide) with music by ex-Canberran Huey Benjamin. It
was extremely well received by the public, and in reviews, and we are confident
after its world premiere in Canberra this year, it will be seen further afield
in years to come, as will the commissioned musical work by Andrew Schultz, Symphony
No 3: Century which had its world premiere here on the 11 March.
While much of the Centenary’s arts program sought to profile
the many excellent qualities of local artists, it should also be noted that
Canberra saw the work of other major performing arts companies in addition to
the Australian Ballet—the Sydney Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, Bangarra,
Black Swan State Theatre company, Sydney Dance and the Australian Chamber
Orchestra all gave terrific guest appearances. And all these added to the list
of all those national institutions based here in the capital. In addition to
the Australian Theatre Forum To the Heart of It, Canberra also hosted Fear
No Art, the Australian Performing Arts Centre Association’s national
conference, which saw practitioners, producers and administrators from all over
the country meet and debate in Canberra.
The project Portrait of a Nation acknowledged the streets of
Canberra as a dictionary of Australian biography, and invited locals to
research the famous and often forgotten Australians their streets are named
after, and to celebrate them. The project had student project connections
through the National Portrait Gallery and national connections to other places,
through a Victorian schools’ project for instance, where the name and the
person also occurred.
The year has also been outstanding in terms of architecture
and design: not only the new publication One Hundred Canberra Houses which gives an alternative history of the capital through its domestic
architecture, and the publication of a noble history of engineering here in the
last one hundred years, but in terms of actual construction such as Nishi,
perhaps the most sustainable apartment building in the country, and the new
Embassy of the Netherlands with similar environmental credentials, the
Boundless all-abilities playground being established on the shores of Lake
Burley Griffin through the generosity of contributions by public servants, the
naming of the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children, a new national rock
garden (also lakeside), the new Scentenary Garden at Hennessy House, the
re-establishment of Constitution Avenue and of course the magnificent National
Arboretum Canberra. The face of the city has changed.
Designers have been actively engaged throughout the year
especially in the Legacy of Good Design project for which local craftspersons
pitched prototypes which could be reproduced in number. A suite of five objects
were then produced as quality memorabilia for the Centenary: they have been
selling like hotcakes and it seems certain that this craft/reproduction model
will leave a legacy for future years.
Architecture and design students have been engaged through
projects like Shine a Light, and more particularly through two important
hypotheticals—the Lodge on the Lake and the CAPITheticAL. The CAPITheticAL was
an international design competition for a hypothetical capital for Australia in
the twenty-first century. Administered on our behalf by the Australian
Institute of Architects, the competition asked architects and designers to put
themselves in the shoes of those 1911 competitors who responded to the original
international competition for the new capital. We demanded of them that they
engage with the history of the original competition, and in particular with
questions about what the capital of a democratic country should be, what it
should contain and what it should symbolise. We also provided provocations—if
this is the Asian century should our capital be physically closer to Asia? If
the Australian people eventually said yes to a republic, would there be the call
for a new capital—and where would you start?
There were more than 1200 registrations of interest from
nearly 30 countries and, in the end, 120 actual entries from 27 countries. The
international multipliers represent a very sizeable promotional aspect of the
competition: tens, if not hundreds, of thousands more people around the world
are now aware of Canberra, perhaps for the first time. The expert jury reported
that highest on the list of concerns were, predictably but satisfyingly,
sustainability and the nature of democracy. The ultimate winner of the $70,000
first prize was Ecoscape Australia, based in Fremantle, WA. It recommended
maintaining the capital in Canberra, but through an ingenious set of references
to the Griffin design, connected Canberra to a northern base which would be the
administrative headquarters for Asian and Indigenous development. The
hypothetical northern capital displayed heroic design for sustainability and
great beauty on the shores of Lake Argyle.
The expert jury, chaired by Professor Barbara Norman, said:
the top three entries form an important and integrated
narrative about the future challenges and the nation’s capital, that include:
better connecting to the north, our indigenous communities in that region and
to SE Asia; recognizing and responding to extreme weather and climate change
and living with our environment; and embracing regional Australia as a critical
consideration in our strategic national vision.[**]
Again—a simple competition, steeped in the history of the
national capital, allowed a complex dialogue about Australia’s futures to
evolve in a virtual space of international dimensions.
And on other international fronts, actual rather than virtual,
the Centenary was equally active. Local artists DJs D’Opus and Roshambo said of
their Centenary exchange project in Brasilia where they performed at the Cena
Contemporânea: ‘We cannot express what a fantastic opportunity it was and the
new creative spark it has given us for writing new music.’
Their exchange counterparts Sistema Criolina from Brasilia
performed here in Canberra and were equally happy to have had this experience.
The project has opened up new possibilities for exchange in the future,
especially as Australia increasingly looks with business, educational and
cultural eyes towards countries like Brazil.
Jyll Bradley is the award-winning British artist and creator
of our sole directly commissioned international work, City of Trees,
which was both a recorded sound project (which you can download from the
Canberra 100 website) and an exhibition at the National Library of Australia.
Jyll wrote:
there can be few honours greater than to be invited to take
part in the centenary of a country’s capital city. I still have to pinch myself
that this was so, and this privilege was mine … Like Canberra perhaps, the show
didn’t give itself away upfront, but required patience and discovery. For me
the city is as much what you bring to it as it brings to you. In my own humble
opinion I believe that this was what Walter and Marion had in mind. The city
they created, whilst full of symbolism, is not an easy read, it’s a layering of
events both personal and collective. It is the people who bring content to
place, by way of symbiotic exchange. The city creeps up on you slowly, but once
it’s under your skin it is so forever. I think on a deep psychological level
this has been my abiding experience of the city, it’s in the water, the light,
and the air and the trees.[††]
Ronan Moss of Canberra Lab, that exciting collective of young
architects, participated in a large-scale installation of photographs at New
York’s Photoville festival as local Canberra photographers had work such as the
Belco Boy shown against the New York skyline. Ronan reported enormous pride and
pleasure to be able to make a project there:
it represented the ‘changing spirit’ of Canberra and the
growing confidence of Belconnen, with its potent mix of students, public
servants and communities from around the globe … The work was about Canberra
seen through a contemporary lens.[‡‡]
In the capital itself, the recent Windows to the World
acknowledged that often hidden aspect of Canberra—its around 100 diplomatic
missions, and the incredible cultural richness they represent; Dean of
Ambassadors and Commissioners, Pedro Delgado, Ambassador for Argentina,
reported a sell-out success of this Spring program which allowed embassies to
open their gates to allow the public to discover their gardens, architecture,
food and other aspects of culture. It is a no-brainer, and hopefully will
continue in future years
The participation of the diplomatic community has been
exceptional all year with contributions to the program of the Canberra Symphony
Orchestra, the anniversary of the unique relationship with France at Telopea
Park School, a new Embassy of the Netherlands and their hosting of a solar car
team and a quartet of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra coming up, and so many
others.
Within the community, our collaboration with the
Canberra Multicultural Forum, saw not only the important forum on the ‘Future
Journey of Democracy’, but also the Harmony Day bus tours which took
participants to diverse places of culture and worship throughout Canberra,
including synagogue, Buddhist temple, Indigenous cultural centre and mosque.
On the international front we connected with India (where
Centenary historian Dr Dave Headon and I were part of a memorial at Walter
Burley Griffin’s gravesite in Lucknow, and a design seminar in Delhi), and with
London as I delivered the Arthur Boyd Memorial Lecture at Australia House where
we met the late Lord Denman (whose predecessor had laid Canberra’s foundation
stone). This resulted in the current Lord and Lady Denman’s visit for the March
celebrations. I launched the Centenary program in Washington and in Chicago
where I was privileged to be shown so much of Walter and Marion’s architecture
by that city’s cultural historian (every city should have one), and we had
those artist projects in Brasilia and New York, and performances from troupes
from sister cities Nara and Beijing, as well as from Dili on the occasion of
the re-signing of the friendship agreement with the ACT.
With all this great good news, and such overwhelmingly
positive results for the Centenary of Canberra, I hesitate to return to the
detractors—but alas I must, as my opportunities for advocating the importance
of Canberra, though I shall always be its champion, will clearly diminish.
One of the chief goals of the Centenary of Canberra was to
increase pride in the national capital. But we have to ask why would
that even need to be a goal, one hundred years after the capital’s
naming, and a good 70 years since the start of its establishment? Well, in one
of his first public statements, a recently elected member of this Parliament
stated that he wouldn't be spending much time here because Canberra is a
‘sterile’ place. The Prime Minister himself said just a couple of weeks ago ‘We
don’t want MPs hanging around Canberra all the time’. This is fair enough—one
understands the need for elected members to be at home, working in their
constituencies and gathering information nation- and world-wide, but
unfortunately people outside the capital often misinterpret this as ‘why
would you want to hang around Canberra?’
Such sentiments have been reinforced time and again by the
leaders of our country: Prime Minister Howard refused to live in the capital,
and Prime Minister Keating who did, called it ‘Australia’s worst
mistake’. Prime Minister Fraser agreed with him. And apart from the Sydney
Morning Herald’s architecture writer Elizabeth Farrelly who continues her
naïve wish for Canberra to be Sydney, there is another small gaggle of
curmudgeons who diss the capital at every opportunity. Given the opportunity to
observe these detractors at close hand for four years and more by now, I
suspect what links them all, and the reason for their unabated spleen, may be
political disappointment—mainly blokes, who didn’t achieve the political
success or access or influence they sought, and blame the city for that
self-perceived failure, rather than themselves and the choices they may have
made.
I wonder if newly elected members, and members of the press
gallery, get an introduction, an induction, to the city that will play host to
their workplace for the next few years. And if not, I wonder if they could be given that opportunity. It is often said that members only ever see inside
this house and their own apartments. Again, one understands the pressure of
work, meetings, late night sittings, and the desire to get home to family and
constituency—but I just wonder if they ever get real insight to the city and
people beyond these walls. Canberra does not deserve just to be used and
abused. Hundreds of thousands of Australian citizens work to keep the city
functional—the drivers, plumbers, gardeners, doctors, engineers, painters,
artists, sports trainers, and public servants—all of them work hard to ensure
the maintenance of a fine city which has proved for decades now its capacity to
host federal government and a hundred international diplomatic missions, as
well as fine scientific institutions and the care and protection of the
nation’s cultural treasures.
There are good restaurants here, beautiful wineries,
terrific local galleries and musea. And I speak not as a Canberran, but as an
Adelaideian who has lived for long periods in Sydney, Melbourne, and London and
enjoyed bigger cities like New York, Paris, Tokyo for lengthy periods and
visited scores more. I know what I am talking about when I say that Canberra is
a fine city with many sophisticated advantages, yet with the pleasures of
living in a relaxed and very green country town. Many Australians understand
this.
The loud, negative and sometimes influential handful are in
fact out of touch with what the majority of Australians thought about Canberra
more than six years ago when planning for the Centenary began, the majority of
a large sample believing that the Centenary of Canberra was a celebration for
all Australians. And so it has proved to be, with a genuine feeling of
connection to the capital frequently and variously expressed throughout 2013.
The artists, scientists, elite sportspersons, Masters sports participants,
young sports participants, vintage car and caravan owners, the 500 humans who
constituted the Human Brochure which tweeted and blogged tens of thousands of
positive messages about the city, the record number of participants and
visitors in Canberra this year, all agree that Canberra is a pleasurable and
entertaining city, safe, full of smarts and clean high country air.
Most importantly, even as we all rightfully and dutifully take
an excited interest in what goes on within these walls, the nation-building
projects which are decided here, the debate which occurs around them, we also
need to acknowledge that Canberra is a place worthy of its status as the place
where all this occurs. My hope is that we increasingly see that pride reflected
from the top, from up here, and communicated honestly, not in ignorance,
through Australian and global media.
Question — We are the lucky ones who live in Canberra.
We can do all of this. We have to resist the media using the word ‘Canberra’
when they mean the federal government! The two magnificent books which are
available in the foyer here—are they being posted free to every school and
every public library in Australia?
Robyn Archer — The simple answer to the question is no,
but it can all be accessed through the website. We still have a few of them
left, and they will be in libraries.
Question — Can corporate bodies or philanthropists be
encouraged to have photographed the unmissable-type activities of which you
spoke so that they can then be recorded on a DVD and made available—maybe at a
cost, maybe free—to the ABC and then available to every school, senior people,
to Australia, via TV?
Robyn Archer — There are a couple of things there. As
to your first comment about the media using ‘Canberra’ as a substitute for
‘government’, in fact our research showed that when it was bad news it was
‘Canberra’, when it was good news it was ‘the federal government’. However, it
was the subject of my National Press Club address in the middle of 2012—and it
hasn’t done a blind bit of good, I can tell you! I kind of never thought it
would but, boy, hasn’t it! It is just everywhere and frequently now, alas, on
the ABC as well.
As to the availability of the stuff, we have got hundreds and
thousands of photographs and we are compiling, as it were, ‘wrap’ documents
which will be online and a few of which will be printed, but we just do not
have the budget to do it. Festivals have a thing called post-festival
depression, and normally they are only two or three weeks. Well, we have had a
year of it and we are experiencing the longest, most difficult time while the
work is thundering. I have something like 11 commitments—public addresses—in
the next week alone, and the program does not really finish until mid-December.
We have got staff starting to move on to other jobs already. I think at the
very end, probably in January, there will be four people left that were
originally there from the beginning. So it is a sad period.
But be aware that kids in particular can access the internet
through their schools and it is probably more important for us to send out a
wide message to say, ‘Have a look at it before it goes’. Our National Library
is archiving at least that, probably the Canberra Diaspora as well, and One
River will be up there for a while. So there will be a lot of evidence. If you
go to the website now there is a lot. But, you know, snap up the books and send
them to your friends, for sure.
Question — I had the great good fortune of working in
this building for many years, but I have had also had the greatest of pleasure
working as a volunteer this year for the Canberra centenary. Can I ask: will
there be a gentle follow-up to this year? Can we not go into a deep despair of
moving on from the centenary? Can we not go into that depression? But will we
be able to—through the Canberra Theatre, perhaps—keep bringing wonderful shows
from the other states and territories, keeping that wonderful connection going
and finding other ways with our Indigenous people to continue telling the story
of the river and many other opportunities that must be out there to continue to
connect Canberra in the strongest possible way?
Robyn Archer — I think, because of the year, Canberra
is a much easier sell now. I think the mood has changed enormously. I will take
the opportunity to thank you and all the volunteers. As in any major event, the
volunteers in Canberra have been absolutely superb and they have really turned
out and received lots of good rewards at Windows to the World, where suddenly
they themselves got to sit inside the embassies, and have a good time.
As to the flow, I did say four years ago—and this is sort of
what is happening—that I did not think that there should be any kind of big
finish to the centenary. It has been suggested that any number of
events—including the Voices in the Forest, which is at the Arboretum next
weekend and which I hope my virus will spare me to still be able to sing
at—could be used as a sort of big ending event, and I said all along I did not
want there to be an ending. What I wanted is that by the time we hit spring, we
would pretty much know whether the year had been a success, and we did, and it
was. But, by spring, the healthiest reflection would be that people were
starting to talk about next year and the next 10 and 20 and 100 years, and I do
think that that is kind of happening. I would rather that there not be an
ending as such, but just saying, ‘Okay, well that has been a great year and now
we are just moving on’.
And I think part of the answer around that is in this changed
infrastructure. Even though our brief wasn’t exactly infrastructure, there has
been a lot of new stuff gone up. It does look a bit different around the place.
But more, perhaps, significantly is the ephemeral notion of ‘the mood’. The
mood is definitely up. I have been saying to a lot of people recently that the
success of a program is very much in the uptake of your audience and your
community. Those big books that the lady before was referring to are a
blueprint. They came out, one in September and one in March, to indicate what
we would be doing, but they are just the plan. So, if people don’t take it up,
then it doesn’t exist, in a way.
And what has been the greatest reward, as people ask us. You
know, the inevitable KPIs—how do you measure your success? One of my greatest
measures of success is that the community responded so generously, that they
came, that shows and events were booked out and that they spontaneously did
things. Not only have we had volunteers coming in but many people proposed
projects of their own accord and just went out and did them. One of the most remarkable,
of course, is this program that was called The Musical Offering, which has seen
more than, I think, 600 performances, all free to the public this year,
but absolutely one on every day of the year—and I sang myself at the 300th day,
at the National Portrait Gallery, a few weeks ago. This was just done by
citizens. They decided that they were going to have a free musical event every
year—and there have been hundreds of those kinds of things. So, in a sense,
that is the success and I think that is what has lifted the mood.
How the ACT Government leverages off this success is really
over to them. That is the next important way of saying: will there be bits of
actual things that went on that may be repeated? Windows to the World is a good
example. The parties at the shops is a great example. Daughter of Skywhale, of
course, is what you all want to see! I jest, although she is going up in
Melbourne. She has had many great subsequent visits and is up in Melbourne on
December the first or second, I think. But what is more important for me is
that I know that Canberra quite often, at any change of government, can get a
bit gloomy. There are shifts in the public service and employment. What I had
always hoped was that with a federal election as part of this year that maybe
the buoyant mood of the centenary would keep people’s spirits up, moving in a
rather more positive way. Certainly, from the feedback that I get, that is the
case, and what is most important is that so many people have been out and
seeing things and there have been so many more visitors to the capital this
year so far. That is what we need to preserve. It needs to be that great spirit
to carry forward.
Somebody, very kindly, at the Business Council gala dinner the
other night, thanked me for the work that I had done, and I was at great pains
to say, ‘Well, I am just that creature out the front of the ship, breasts to
the wind—and very exposed from time to time, I might say! But behind me I have
a massively well-constructed, beautifully functioning ship of a team that has
been responsible really for the delivery of this. But somebody expressed to me
at that dinner that quite often I used the word the ‘infancy’ of early
Canberra. Many people have been talking about its recent history as its adolescence,
and somebody said to me the other night: ‘We feel that what the year has done
has tipped it from adolescence into that over-18 period. It has actually come
of age. It has actually matured’. And that, I think, is the hope of the future
for the city. Its potential is great. The conversations that the ACT has around
the futures are very healthy. There is a lot of planning going on, and I think
just the uplifting of the profile of a good twenty-first century city, in which
this house sits and all that major national stuff goes on, as well as in the
institutions. That is the kind of nice fit that we would like to see in the
future—equally praised, equally valued.
* This paper was presented as a lecture in the
Senate Occasional Lecture Series at Parliament House, Canberra, on 15 November
2013.
[*] Jacqui Martin’s story for Canberra Diaspora,
http://vimeo.com/41272439.
[†] Andrew Fisher, Speech at the ceremony to lay the
foundation stones for Canberra, 12 March 1913 in Canberra: Capital City of
the Commonwealth of Australia, Government Printer, Victoria, [1913], p. 23.
[‡] One Very Big Year Snapshot, [Centenary of
Canberra Task Force, Canberra, 2013],
http://www.canberra100.com.au/about/snapshot/, p. 54.
[§] ibid, p. 15. Translated by Dr Diana James.
[**] ‘CAPITheticAL winners’, Architecture Australia,
vol. 102, no. 2, March 2013,
http://architectureau.com/articles/capithetical-winners/.
[††] One Very Big Year Snapshot, p. 48.
[‡‡] Megan Doherty, ‘Belco gets pride of place in New
York’, Canberra Times, 11 October 2013,
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/belco-gets-pride-of-place-in-new-york-20131011-2vctc.html.
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