Local Cultures – Global Spaces

Abstract

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This initial image based study on Canberra, the Federal Capital of Australia, has been influenced by the 1970s New Topographics movement documenting man-made landscapes. I have created seven photobooks exploring different functional areas and a video work showing a car travel along a road (see website www.stephaniep.com for details). These spaces can be understood from a phenomenological approach as spaces that are derived from personal activity and experience. I have come to the following preliminary conclusions. This initial project shows an urban environment that is for Australians who have economic privilege. A certain amount of income is required to buy a home, a car and to live a suburban life and/or socialise in city centre. This man-made environment allows Australians a choice of live apart from the community. Housing design in the newer suburbs tends to minimise community engagement. This could be for reasons including ethnic and social class. Driving a private motor vehicle further empowers inhabitants to choose the level of community interaction they are comfortable with. Roads are not neutral spaces with no meaning but forms the skeleton on which Canberra’s urban environment is constructed. As Witcher states the road has ideological aspects which “denies the past, whilst physically inscribing a new authority upon the landscape as part of a new present.” On a grander scale what is implied from the images is that this urban environment has developed a culture where the deep past has been forgotten. I assert that cultural interaction—where meaning is generated with Canberra’s urban environment—creates stored oral memory mnemonics that connect individuals to the area. The longer these people inhabit Canberra’s urban environment, the deeper the stored memories and prior occupants forgotten.