Sweet Suburbia: 2020 Photography Competition

SWEET SUBURBIA
2020 PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION

One city
200+ events
9—29 November 2020
Exhibition on display at Canberra Contemporary Art Space as part of the
DESIGN Canberra festival (9-29 November 2020).
Tuesday-Sunday, 11am-5pm
44 Queen Elizabeth Terrace, Parkes ACT 2600
Cover image: Fiona Bg, Harry Seidler, Lakeview apartments (detail),
2019. Finalist in the open category.

SWEET SUBURBIA
2020 PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION
DesignCanberraFestival.com.au
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Sweet Suburbia
Exhibition statement
The 2020 DESIGN Canberra photography
competition responded to the theme
of ‘This is Suburbia’ to celebrate the
suburban identity of Canberra.
A panel of judges which included Beatrice
Smith (Editor, HerCanberra), Davey Barber
(Photographer, 5 Foot Photography)
and Darren Bradley (Photographer)
selected six finalists who will have their
photographs on display alongside the
100 semi-finalists. These photographs
present intriguing perspectives and
diverse responses to our city’s suburban
identity. Don’t miss the opportunity to see
these beautiful photographs in person
throughout the festival at East Space.
Page 2-3: Paris Smith-Davies, Training at the local fields,
2020. Finalist in the open category.
Opposite: Ari Schlumpp, Gungahlin or LA, 2020. Finalist
in the open category.
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Sweet Suburbia
Catalogue essay: Beatrice Smith
The suburbs of the Inner North run deep
in my blood. In a cold Canberra winter, I
was brought home to a house on Ainslie’s
Officer Crescent, thus beginning
a lifelong relationship with Canberra’s
‘lentil belt’.
I grew up climbing the equipment in the
park across the road and took dawdling
walks to the shops that now garner so
much acclaim. A few houses along was
the friend’s house I went to in college to
eat Mi Goring noodles and a few streets
up was one of my first share houses—a
cottage so damp I got tonsilitis six times
in a year.
Along Officer Crescent winds the
ambling bus route I took to primary
school, high school, to the cinema
when I skipped class during college,
to university, and even during my first
days at HerCanberra. If I close my eyes,
I can trace the Number Two bus route
street for street, house for house. Ainslie
is acorns underfoot as you walk to the
shops, the rasp of breath as you walk up
the mountain, the smell of jasmine on
night walks.
When I was five, we moved across Majura
Avenue to Dickson, where I learned
to ride a bike on a dusty oval where lush
wetlands now stand. Down the bike path
was my best friend’s house, the pool
where my dad taught me to swim and
sticky finger buns from Baker’s Delight.
Dickson is buskers outside Woolworths,
the crisp chlorine of the pool and the
glow of the oval floodlights, bright and
clear across the dusk.
When I was 10, we moved north across
Phillip Avenue to Hackett, where I would
walk the streets constantly, a sulky teen
with my iPod Mini and our new puppy.
A rule of thumb for Hackett is that the
houses get bigger and grander the
steeper the street’s angle. Hackett is
echoed shouts from soccer practice on
the oval, the sting of crushed eucalypt
leaves along the Mount Majura trail and
surprisingly intricate Christmas light
displays.
Opposite: Cooper Jackson, 2020. Finalist in the
student category.
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Cross Antill Street and you’re in Watson,
where one winding street holds the family
home of my first serious boyfriend, a
sweet modern cottage where I housesit,
and my friend’s share house that was
gate crashed during a Halloween party,
leading to a brawl in the street.
When I was younger, I sometimes found
these suburbs stifling. Now I treasure
their quiet, calm atmosphere—each tree
familiar yet street names unknown. We
don’t know these places by name, we
know them by feel.
It’s these familiar feelings that DESIGN
Canberra has captured in Sweet Suburbia—an
exhibition that is both a celebration
of Canberra’s unique geography,
and a meditation on our tethered state
in 2020.
Sweet Suburbia encourages Canberrans
to find the familiar—and the unfamiliar—
in a quilt of suburban living—and to celebrate
it—with imagery from the heart of
our community, from names both known
and emerging. These photos capture
the achingly familiar and introduce us to
new ways to see the places we think we
know. What’s old is new again.
Beatrice Smith
Online Editor, HerCanberra
In Canberra, suburbs surround us and
in 2020, there has been little escape.
However, we soon realised that escape
wasn’t what we needed—or wanted. The
suburbs and their communities have
nourished us, checked in on us, supported
us. The suburbs kept us safe.
Opposite: Willow, student from Blue Gum Community
School, 2020. Finalist in the student category.
Page 12-13: Naomi Vilkaitis, 2020. Finalist in the student
category.
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Page: Fiona Bg, Harry Seidler, Lakeview apartments,
2019. Finalist in the open category.

Top 100 (1/3)
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Top 100 (2/3)
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Top 100 (3/3)
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9—29 November
One city
200+ events
DesignCanberraFestival.com.au
DESIGN Canberra is the major outreach activity for Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre — a not-forprofit
membership based organisation which supports local artists, designers and makers at
every stage of their careers. The festival is delivered in collaboration with industry, associations
and educational institutions committed to the design arts and creative industries in Canberra.