UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE ACT

ACT Region Heritage Symposium 2018 – Update

Heritage On The Edge: Continuity With Change In Canberra?

This year’s Symposium will focus on Canberra’s Modern (‘Modernist’) Architecture, a style widely used in Canberra for public buildings and private housing in the mid-20th Century, and of international standing. Its minimalist form is not a contemporary style today as Canberra rapidly changes with a focus on innovation and development, and high rise living. Change is a constant, but how are we applying it in Canberra so heritage is identified and protected to ensure a connection with our past, and a continuity of our sense of place?

With the sub-themes Vital and Vulnerable: threats to the Modern Urban Landscape; Continuity with Change: sustaining Canberra’s Modern heritage; and Hidden yet Found: revealing invisible Modern heritage, the Symposium will look at what Canberra’s Modern Urban Landscape is and what its heritage values are—central to Canberra story, and its vulnerability. How can we take such values into account with development and the broader impact on heritage with change? What processes, what guidelines can we apply to sustain Canberra’s modern heritage, and our heritage and its landscape more generally to ensure continuity with change and maintain a sense of place—a sense of community engagement? What are methods to see hidden aspects of this heritage, applying tools, such as the archaeology of structures, oral histories, and other evidence, so the Canberra community and visitors can appreciate this aspect of Canberra’s story.

The diverse program features local and interstate perspectives, exploring Canberra’s modernist heritage from different angles: design for learning; conserving the marble facade of the National Library; a creative approach to engagement with Northbourne Ave’s public housing precinct; working with planning legislation; managing Canberra’s mid century landscapes; lessons from Sydney, Hobart and Armidale about valuing, conserving and celebrating our mid century spaces and places.

Take a tour of ANU’s mid-century architecture; get involved in a panel discussion on key issues; and end the day with a light-hearted look at the symbiotic relationship between cocktail culture and mid-century life in the capital.

The program will be available shortly but I have been assured that there will likely be talks of interest to historical archaeologists within the general topic as there has been in previous years.

Date: Saturday 18 August 2018

Time: 9.00am – 5.00pm

Venue: RN Robertson Building (46) Science Road ANU 2601

Cost: $75 full registration; $55 members host organisations; $35 concessions, fulltime students, speakers

Registration, and the program, when available, can be found at: https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/event/act-region-heritage-symposium-2018/

Archaeology in the Pub, Canberra

Call for presenters now open! The format is 8 researchers, 8 minutes to tell a story, wow the crowd or share a breakthrough: we’ve had ecology stand up comedy, chemistry experiments, biology quizzes, and physics poetry. Contact Phil to get involved. He takes a broad view of the subject… palaeontology, anthropology, history, all welcome.
WHEN: 7 PM Friday 21 September
WHERE: Smiths Alternative, 76 Alinga St Civic
COST: Free thanks to Inspiring the ACT and Physics@ANU.

See for further information and contact https://www.facebook.com/events/1779747452120727/

Professor Peter Stone OBE talk: Protecting cultural property in conflict. Critical responsibility or unnecessary, impossible, distraction?

Special Centre for Archaeological Research Centre/Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies seminar, ANU, 3.30pm 10 August 2018, in Room 2.02, Sir Roland Wilson Building.

Cultural property (not only archaeological sites but archives, library and museum collections, and art) is always damaged and destroyed during a conflict – it is what happens, and there is nothing that can be done about it. However, a proportion of such damage and destruction is frequently avoidable and has been regarded as bad practice by military theorists for over 2,000 years. National and international attempts, with varying success, have been made to reduce these losses. The Blue Shield organisation was created in 1996 in an attempt to raise the profile of cultural property protection. Since then it has worked with the military and other relevant organisations to flag the importance of this work. Progress has been slow but recently significant steps have been taken.

For further information see http://www.anu.edu.au/events/special-carcentre-for-heritage-and-museum-studies-seminar

ANU’s Triabunna Barracks, Tasmania, Archaeological Field School 2019 announced

This will be held 4 -27 January 2019. Organised by the School of Archaeology & Anthropology, Research School of Humanities & the Arts, ANU College of Arts and the Social Sciences, under the supervision of Ash Lenton. It will again focus on the investigation of the military barracks which serviced the adjacent Maria Island convict settlement in the 1840’s.

Contact: [email protected]

See for further information https://m.facebook.com/TriabunnaBarracksANU.Dig/ and Twitter #TriabunnaBarracks