Celebrating Early

With my brother preoccupied with graduation preparations, my parents & I decided to explore some of Canberra’s many public venues. As previously mentioned in my New Zealand Blog, Canberra is a planned city of 345,000 people that was extensively built in the late 1800s to settle a long running dispute over whether Sydney or Melbourne should be the Australian capital. I prefer to call it a bureaucratic city because this is the centre of Australian politics & government administration. I should also note that Canberra was established as a European settlement back in the 1820s and continued to grow steadily over time.

Canada had a similar dispute between English Toronto & French Montreal over which one should be the permanent capital of Canada. In 1857, Queen Victoria was asked to settle the matter and she picked Ottawa, an unruly logging town in between Toronto & Montreal.

Much of Australia’s government institutions such as parliament, national archives, supreme courts, and bureaucratic departments are located in Canberra. Since it’s a planned city, the place is filled with grand boulevards, wide promenades, tall monuments, historic museums, galleries, and planted gardens. It reminds me of other planned cities such as Washington DC, Moscow, Pyongyang, & Brasilia.

Before venturing out to explore Canberra, my parents & I had morning breakfast at The Fellows Bar & Café, located next to the University House. The Fellows offers an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet that serves fruit, croissants, eggs, bacon, muffins, hash browns, coffee, tea, and many fruit juices. The quality of food is quite good so take advantage of it when you’re staying at UniHouse.

We began our day trip at the nearby National Film & Sound Archive. The NFSA was established in 1984 for the purpose of developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting, and providing access to a large collection of Australian audiovisual materials that span from the late 19th century to the present. One of the main attractions is the '100 years of Australian Film' gallery where visitors can interact with various displays that showcase excerpts from famous Australian films, television shows, and radio programs. Visitors can also enjoy the "best of Australian & world cinema in the Arc theatre," a state-of-the-art screening venue that can seat 250 people. Unfortunately, there weren't any movies being shown during our visit, so that will be for next time. It's quite an impressive collection to see so I would devote at least an hour when visiting: two hours if you've bought tickets to an Arc screening.

My parents & I took a bus to the National Portrait Gallery, located near the Old Parliament House. I had been to the Gallery before but only stepped in briefly to buy a snack from the café. As with all public art galleries, you have to turn in your knapsack & cameras first before gaining entry (free in this case). I was actually impressed with the exhibitions and the fact that there was an actually balance between space and product. In the past, I have often criticized many art galleries for having too many empty walls and not enough works. The two main travelling exhibitions were: Martin Schoeller – Close Up, and Jenny Sages – Paths to Portraiture. Martin Schoeller is photographer who’s pictures ‘explore the human identities of individuals accustomed & unaccustomed to the spotlight’. Jenny Sages’s exhibition explores the process of portrait making, displaying many rough sketches and the final portraits. The permanent exhibitions display many portraits of European aristocrats, explorers, and military leaders.

Before leaving we took a short break at the Portrait Gallery café, snacking on small sandwiches and drinks. The prices are a little expensive so be prepared. There’s also a gift shop if you want to buy souvenirs.

We continued exploring Australia’s art scene at the National Gallery of Australia which just happened to be right next to the Portrait Gallery. The NGA was established in 1967 and currently holds more than 120,000 works of art. These works of art are divided into many different categories such as: Asian, Australian, Indigenous, Pacific, European-American, sculptures, and costumes. There are galleries that feature contemporary, minimalist, and impressionist works but I should warn you that several of these ‘works’ are going to make you question why they were even purchased. The most questionable ‘work’ in my mind contained two large plain white coloured portraits, that’s it. That’s worse than The Voice of Fire.

Our stay at the National Gallery was cut short because we were meeting my brother at the Kremlin Bar to celebrate his upcoming graduation from law school at the Australian National University. As Arnold Schwarzenegger would say, “I’ll be back.” The Kremlin Bar is Canberra’s ‘unique Soviet era 5 star lounge-bar’ located on Northbourne Avenue. The bar’s aim is to ‘immerse its customers in the mysterious era of the Iron Curtain, propaganda, and sexy spies.’ The establishment accommodates 98 people and offers live music, DJ, and catering services. However, there wasn’t that much Soviet imagery as I was expecting. The establishment is decorated in red and the staff wear Soviet pins but that’s about it. On the plus side, there is a large abundance of Russian beer & vodka to order. The Avant Garde Bar back in Ottawa is much more realistic because the walls are covered by old Soviet propaganda posters, something the Kremlin Bar should look into getting.

My parents & I met up with my brother just outside the Kremlin Bar in the late afternoon. We went outside and found a place to sit in the lounge area. Since there weren’t that many people, we were able to spread out as we drank and talked about whatever. My brother was happy to have passed all of his final exams and that his application to graduate had been approved. He had spent much of the day making sure he had a graduation gown for tomorrow, his name was on the program, where photos would be taken, and where to assemble with all the other graduates. Overall, the Kremlin Bar is a friendly place to hang out with your comrades but needs more Soviet imagery or should I say ‘socialist realism’?