Just a couple of days to go before the conference so today required a trip into the city for a few last minute things. Also managed to catch a movie with some friends, the first in a little while. Saw The Monuments Men, about a group tasked with saving the art treasures stolen by the Nazis during World War Two. We can only hope that would never happen again but the possibility lurks I guess.
The walk from Queen Street Mall to the Barracks building over at Roma Street offers some fascinating streetscapes (from a photographers point of view). I could spend a lot of time strolling along there, and one day I might.
It was a humid day with occasional showers, just enough to feel more like summer than autumn. The council has relocated one of the city's more interesting sculptures to the top of Queen Street Mall recently. It has replaced what was one of my favourites, a fountain in the shape of a dining table and chairs...the drought and ongoing maintenance was its downfall apparently. Anyway, this one is called Gestation by Baile Oakes and was part of World Expo '88 (which I missed completely, but that's another story). It makes for a dramatic part of the landscape.
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| A monumental day (Gestation, Baile Oakes, c. 1988, Queen St Mall, Brisbane) |
There was a bit of return the past all around today. I've also purchased the second instalment of of Matt Condon's book on Queensland police and politics in the 1970-80s, Jacks and Jokers; and this weekend I learnt that one of the city's key architects, Robin Gibson, repsonsible for the very mall I was standing in, the cultural centre across the river where I spend so much of my time and early elements of Griffith University at Nathan, where I began my own studies and career. Vale Robin Gibson.
[Camera : iPhone 4S, 3.31pm]
