Friday Five: Enlightenment.

I have mentioned before (about this time last year, funnily enough) how much I like the Enlighten Festival that Canberra puts on. Having wiffled on about it previously, I think I shall just highlight my top five architectural projections for this year.

5 Architectural Projections:

1. The National Library is currently exhibiting Mapping Our World: Terra Incognita to Australia - the terrific collection of cartographic treasures is highlighted in the images on the walls of the building.





2. The National Portrait Gallery exterior features animated designs which chase each other across the face of the building. One short story relates the theft and recovery of a precious artefact.





3. The National Gallery of Australia follows up last year's outstanding Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition with works from Gold and the Incas: Lost Worlds of Peru. All of these images are fabulous, but obviously I like the one with the cat best.





4. Old Parliament House provides a canvas for a number of cartoonish and surreal presentations. They are bright and colourful and some feature kangaroos.





5. Parliament House displays projections of past politicians, national artworks and events of extreme importance (the signing of the Magna Carta) but my favourite is the wordscape of the constituencies that comprise the current government.

My Newest Favourite Thing: Enlighten Canberra

You can tell this is my newest favourite thing because I took hundreds of photographs. I haven't put all of them here, but there are quite a lot.

I have mentioned before that I find Canberra's public buildings a bit dull and uniform. This, however, makes them ideal canvases for the festival 'Enlighten'. It lasts for a week and images are projected onto their surfaces to bring the buildings to life. The projection artists are Betty Holdsworth, David Sequeira, Eleanor Gates-Stuart, Martin Ollman, and Houl.

The images change every 30 seconds or so and last from when it gets dark until 11pm. We strolled around the parliamentary triangle on a balmy evening and were entertained and quite enlightened. First up, the National Library.

These images are among my favourites, with the pictures of Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin alongside their designs for Australia's capital city and photographs of the realisation of these designs. Of course this is particularly apt as Canberra is busy celebrating its centenary.

The National Portrait Gallery also had some interesting artwork shape-shifting on its outer walls.

The National Gallery of Australia is currently showing an exhibition of works by Toulouse-Lautrec. During this week, many of those works are projected onto the front of the building and they look equally remarkable inside and out. They overwhelm in their entirety and stun in their detail.

Ain't that a kick in the head!

These images projected onto Old Parliament House are among my favourite. Surely the word 'enlighten' on a government body building is an audacious statement? The graffiti art is a bold move too.

My Dysfunctional Family!

And this is Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre.