Photos of the rides, the people, the ferries coming in, the views, everything….. 

can't believe I never...

Can’t believe I have never been to Luna Park. That enormous face with the gaping mouth and buggy eyes right next to Sydney Bridge has, to be honest, always put me off. Felt the rides and stuff behind it would be mundane in comparison, and certainly not up to the glorious decrepitude of Coney Island in New York. Plus, I really hate going on fairground rides - I get very sick very quickly, to the extent that even looking at big dippers etc., makes me a bit queasy. But, weirdly, Dr. Cornel West (African-American scholar and activist) was giving a public talk at the Big Top, Luna Park (yes, that is what I said) so I went early to take pictures at twilight. And of course it was a magical place - both in its own right as a fading, small but determined amusement park and as a location to look back at Sydney Harbour and Opera House. Took photos until my battery ran out.  

harry and penelope’s house

As always, the intention to do lots of cultural things has not really worked out. Booked tickets for Expanded Architecture (installation/architecture/dance) but then didn’t make it. Have still not got to Anne Ferran’s photographs at the Australian Centre for Photography, or the contemporary Chinese work at White Rabbit Gallery, or the dream home/small home exhibition –already finished! – at the Museum of Sydney. But K and I did (through luck rather than planning) get to visit inside the iconic Harry and Penelope Seidler House, a tour led by Penelope herself, as part of the current Seidler exhibition. Well-weathered piece of concrete modernism, with prime examples of furniture from the 1970s. And bumped into somebody I have not seen for many, many years, also visiting, which was nice.

group shot

After the trolleys, I joined in another public art project as part of Art and About Sydney, this one called Us by James Dive of the Glue Society, that makes a riff on formal family and group photographic portraits, by bringing together complete strangers. So I got to take away a portrait of a random collection of people, with all the many many variations (taken over several days) on view here.