Images of Canberra - Civic public art walking tour Episode 30, Untitled

seepi: that’s just cynical enough to be true.

I heard these bus shelters were designed not to provide shelter, to discourage anyone from sleeping in them.

Bogong moths, Aborigines mudered (murdered perhaps?), insects in a light shade? Here’s someone putting their Fine Arts / Art-History Major to good use by providing us with a Marxist interpretataion of another banal example of Post Modern public art in the Capital.

just proves the point, form over function = useless waste of money.

these shelters suck arse. and they are not aging very well. the older ones provided more actual shelter.

Does anyone know if the paint is on the top or the bottom of the glass? And how did the artist get it to stick to the glass?

I think it is a creative way to provide shade to people sitting underneath the shelter. At fist glance it appears to be leaves which have fallen on the roof, but on closer inspection, shoe prints are seen, suggesting a ‘white washing’ of the environment in Civic with non Indigenous smears of capitalism. Footprints represent the damage done to the land and its inhabitants, both human and non human. The dark hues create murky shadows on the ground nearby, remeniscent of the cover ups thrown over the public regarding Indigenous muders by settlers and deaths in police custody. The marks on the glass appear like insects trapped within a flouescent light shade. And perhaps these marks commemorate the Australian Bogong moth’s path through the city that would not move out of its way at any cost.

Those things are art? Huh. I’d always assumed the roofs just needed a wash. Guess I’m just a philistine.

That’s why the footprints are on the roof – if you’re gonna get wet, then you may as well climb up there & get soaked.

These bus shelters are an excellent example of architectual design principals being far more important than functionality.

They look nice and pretty, but they don’t keep the wind and rain off anyone who has the misfortune of having to use them whilst waiting for the bus in the middle of Winter.