Creative Director News
Winter in Canberra is exquisite
Wednesday, 29 June, 2011Winter in Canberra is exquisite: icy mornings, frost on the grass, bare trees, piercing blue sky, warm sun by day and glorious sunsets over a still lake. Alexandra Kollontai, the Russian revolutionary and feminist (Europe’s first female political minister and the world’s first female ambassador) once said that spring did nothing for her. It was always autumn which excited her... Read more...
Preview of the 2013 program is taking shape
Wednesday, 28 September, 2011Again I find myself moved by an achingly beautiful Spring: the change of seasons continues to dominate my Canberra experience and govern the way I view the unfolding of our 2013 celebrations. And I have to say that those celebrations now feel like tomorrow, as if we have already made our major announcements and are heading towards the big year... Read more...
The team is currently working very hard to ensure that package of goodies is ripe and ready for heralding in March
Monday, 19 December, 2011Many of you may not know that the Centenary celebrations will be largely created by Australian talent: this seems appropriate for the celebration of the national capital. But of course this city has always embraced internationalism. Canberra of all places in Australia has a deeply embedded international community: large numbers of diplomats, educators, scientists, students and the scores of language groups amongst people living here are at the heart of the life of the national capital.
CAPITheticAL
Friday, 6 May, 2011The Centenary of Canberra is every bit as much about the present and the future as it is about the past, and there are some projects which cleverly manage to combine all those perspectives. CAPITheticAL is one such project. Read more...
Canberra's 98th birthday wrapup
Friday, 25 March, 2011So, there we go, another birthday been and gone, and the 99th now keenly anticipated. It's been a fairly short sharp shock for everyone to realise that it's now less than one year until we release our Highlights program for 2013. That's how close the big one is, and our expanding team is pushing ahead on all fronts...
Centenary planning
Wednesday, 1 December, 2010We’re pleased to introduce so many new supporters to the Centenary e-newsletter with this edition. The pace of Centenary planning has quickened as we start to delve into the detail of a wide range of projects.
In process are Show Us Your Limits which you can now see on our website and the Devotion, Daring and Sense of Destiny exhibition which opens mid December at Parliament House: both are impressive displays and they pay tribute to the heroic efforts of Canberra’s surveyors.
The first phase of The Canberra Diaspora is also now live, and we encourage you to have a look at www.canberradiaspora.com.au...
Canberra in Spring.
Thursday, 16 September, 2010Canberra in Spring. The pink and white blossoms are staggeringly beautiful, the buds on trees and wisteria are ready to burst. I adore winter, especially in the national capital, but now even I am taking pleasure in the little previews of warmth in the sun. This city really does allow me to experience the changes of season in ways which unfold exquisitely every day of the year, and I try to imagine how it will feel in 2013 when so much of the work we are now planning is fully in swing and some of it already well and truly swung.
The Spring of 2013 will rejoice in renewal and youth, renaissance and looking to the future of the national capital...
Picture of Robyn by Rodger Cummins.
One Thousand days to go!
Wednesday, 16 June, 2010Yes folks, it’s 1000 to 100 – that is, one thousand days on the dot until marking the 100th anniversary of Canberra’s name day.
In 1000 days we will be partying like there’s no tomorrow. Except there will be a tomorrow. In fact there will be, at very least, another one hundred years for this city to go on being an incubator for the nation in so many ways – and that’s why the way we are preparing for the centenary celebrations in a very particular way.
Of course there will be a party around the long weekend which will end in a grand celebration on the eve ( March 11th) of our birthday and on the day itself, but...
Canberra's 97th birthday wrapup
The events that surrounded Canberra’s 97th birthday were many and varied: some tried and true such as Celebrate in the Park, some brand new such as the extremely well-attended Symphony in the Park and Flipart, and some simply with a new twist.
Lights! Canberra! Action! was superbly situated in Garema Place this year and worked extremely well as an outdoor event. The prelude and interval interventions by Erth and Dislocate from Flipart added new diversions. Everyone commented that the quality of the entries into L!C!A! has escalated dramatically and certainly all finalists were well received by the large crowd....
So, today’s Canberra’s birthday?
Friday, 12 March, 2010So, today’s Canberra’s birthday? Mmm, what does that mean exactly? It can’t mean the birth of the land, since that happened millions of years ago, pre-Gondwana even. And it isn’t dating the era when it was traditional owners exclusively caring for this land, that’s at least 20,000 years ago, nor even the arrival of inland settlers who started tending the land in the 1820s. No, with the aid of the excellent booklets produced by our historian Dr Dave Headon, I learn that 12 March is the day when the Foundation stones were formally laid to proclaim the site of a new national capital city for the still newly federated nation of Australia. This day truly commemorates the birth day of a city, but a city with influence far beyond its own borders.
Robyn Archer joins Centenary
Wednesday, 8 July, 2009In a major step forward for the centenary project, Ms Robyn Archer AO has been announced as the Centenary of Canberra Creative Director. Ms Archer is a singer, writer, director, artistic director and public advocate of the Arts.
