Canberra’s Cultural Heart
In June 1911, 40-year-old Marion eloped with fellow romantic idealist Walter Burley Griffin, "short, round, blond, passive, imperturbable - a gentle philosopher" (Lindell, 2021). Weeks later the pair entered an international competition for the design of a new capital in Australia.
Griffin's design was selected as the winner from among 137 entries and in 1913 the capital was named Canberra from the local Aboriginal Walgalu people’s word meaning ‘meeting place’ (Thompson, 2011).
“Many aspire to hold Canberra’s cultural heart from the big national institutions to the smaller regional galleries and museums that make up the National Triangle”
Marion’s large-scale renderings on silk and watercolour pictures helped win over their entry but neither had ever set foot in Australia. Their designs were made on the basis of maps and topographic and weather information from the site.
Country is so important to the shaping of place and the culture that lies within. Before there was Canberra, there were the Ngunnawal, the Ngambri and the Ngarigu people. The land didn’t belong to them. They belonged to the land. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
The success of the Griffin design was that it worked with the natural landscape. Their proposed city was located centrally between the three hills of Black Mountain, Mount Ainslie and Mugga Mugga, and was north and south of an ornamental lake made up of a series of linked basins.
It is here Canberra’s cultural heart started to take shape. In their submission to the 2018-19 Inquiry into Canberra’s National Institutions, the ACT Government said “as a collective brand, the national cultural institutions located in Canberra have the capacity to leave a lasting impression in the minds of all those who visit.”
“Prior to the 1980s Australia’s national arts scene was concentrated in Melbourne and Sydney. However, since the establishment of the National Gallery of Australia in 1982, the National Museum of Australia in 1991 and the National Portrait Gallery in 1998, Canberra has emerged as one Australia’s key centres of culture.” (ACT Government submission, 2018)
The National Capital Authority now believe "Canberra is recognised as one of Australia’s great achievements. A beautiful city of identifiable Australian character, in which the National Capital’s roles and functions operate efficiently and with proper regard to their place and importance in a modern federal democracy” (NCA Submission, 2018).
“national institutions are economic and tourism drawcards, and are key assets in Australia’s international engagement.”
Before COVID, big numbers of people came here each year, in part attracted by the national institutions, the natural landscape and the virtue of Canberra as Australia’s capital city.
In 2018 Canberra was announced by the Lonely Planet as the third best city in the world to visit much to everyone’s surprise. Lonely Planet spokesperson Chris Zeiher said the city has been hiding in plain sight. "Rich with history, culture and entertainment… a truly contemporary and unique sense of style, with boutique precincts emerging throughout the city, bursting with cool bars, cafes and restaurants."
Canberra is coming of age and the arts and cultural scene with it. But cultural value needs to be defined in more than just economic terms.
“now more than ever, we need rigorous ways of understanding and measuring that elusive thing we call ‘cultural value’”
The 2016 UK study into cultural value said it was important to “consider the ability of arts and cultural engagement to help shape reflective individuals, facilitating greater understanding of themselves and their lives, increasing empathy with respect to others, and an appreciation of the diversity of human experience and cultures.”
The 2004 Mills and Brown report on Art and Wellbeing also “shows that direct involvement by communities in arts activity can contribute significantly to individual and community wellbeing and can enhance the efforts of government agencies in realising their policies for community wellbeing and ecologically sustainable communities.”
As Paul Crawford said in his 2018 article for The Conservation “by engaging in creative activities such as music making and listening, dance, drawing, comedy, reading groups, visiting museums and galleries and so on, people can do their minds and bodies the world of good… They can improve our physical and mental health, not least through the increased social connections.”
So it’s not just the big national institutions that help shape Canberra’s cultural heart, its the many small regional galleries and museums that provide opportunities for people to connect, to be creative and be part of a community.
Ainslie and Gorman for example offer rich opportunities to create, present and enjoy art, to network and collaborate, to teach and learn, and to foster critical discussion and the meeting of creative minds.
The Canberra Contemporary Arts Space say they are “Canberra’s centre for innovation, new ideas and directions in contemporary visual arts.” Canberra Museum and Gallery define themselves as “a vibrant place in the heart of the city” that “celebrates the region's social history and visual arts with dynamic exhibitions and unique community programs and events.”
By putting the experience of individuals back at the heart of ideas about cultural value, we can then start to better “understand the kinds of benefit that culture may have for society, for communities, for democracy, for public health and wellbeing, for urban life and regional growth.” (The Cultural Value Project, 2016).
Canberra’s cultural heart is alive and strong in the national triangle, and also online now too thanks to social distancing restrictions. Stay connected. Stay strong.
