Now and When: Australian Urbanism

View photos from the launch 

The immersive environment is in two parts -Now presents aerial views of three Australian cities as they are now, including Surfers Paradise by leading Australian photographer  and co-creative director John Gollings.

 

17 futuristic urban environments imagineWhen we reach 2050 and beyond. Depicting Australian cities 40+ years into the future, these ideas are the result of a national competition set by the Australian Institute of Architects. The national competition for Whensubmissions was intended to liberate architects from planning and design constraints to create a vision of the future. The visions range from a city that is powered by mould, one that is based on ‘aquaculture’ and regions that are connected by central ‘spines’.

As a special addition to the presentation ofNow and When, John Gollings presents a preview selection of an new and ongoing project that he is currently undertaking to re-photograph exactly the same views that he shot in 1973 when he and two other architectural colleagues came to Surfers Paradise to do a major study of the then emergent strip city.

 

He focused then on the signature hotels and flamboyant  street signage that imitated the bold graphics of the American highway landscape but also captured the fading 30s beach guest houses and took views from above from the smattering of early highrises.

 

The exacting process of rephotography using the original cameras and lenses brings forth images that allow us to reflect on the enormous changes that have taken place in only a few short decades but also provoke us to consider the inherent values of the original urban streetscape that we are losing. 

Local artist Donna Marcus was invited to respond to the aerial night-time Now images to produce a new wall sculpture that drew from an earlier series of work Cities that she had undertaken in the late 1990s. This new work is much larger than these earlier works at almost three metre square and features 81 brilliant red aluminium pans, jelly moulds, lids and steamers.

In assembling the elements in a precise gird on the wall, Marcus references the traditional city grid as seen from above but which also she suggests ‘the grid becomes a device that allows in both art and life, the layering of junk – the detritus of the home, seemingly bringing order to chaos.'

2010 University of Queensland Architectural Masters students were asked to offer their designs on a future Gold Coast City Gallery as part of a redeveloped Cultural Precinct at Evandale. This display will present some of the best of these student works and give us the opportunity to visualise what a new Art Gallery could be like on this site.

The Artspace
Primary school students from one of our nearest neighbours at Benowa State School have collaborated with the Queensland Academies of Education Queensland to do a body of work based on the ideas of the Now and When exhibition. Students have looked closely at their immediate suburban environment and undertaken documentary and historical analysis and Year 6 students have considered their vision of When for their own future here in 50 years time.