A steady flow of patrons have week visited a one-week exhibition that traces the people, plans and quiet ambition that shaped Canberra’s Catholic story. Source: Catholic Voice.
“With every human activity, we want to know where we came from, and we want to know where we’re heading – but in order to orient ourselves in time, we look to the past for guidance,” ACU’s Campus Dean, Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński, said.
Archdiocesan archivist Richard Marsden said the exhibition was only running this week.
“In the main, it was a requirement of the contract that we have with the ACT Government when I was successful in getting a grant to digitise some of our collection,” Mr Marsden said.
“The idea was to get some seed funding to see how much work would be involved to digitise various items.
“So we’ve got vestments, documents and photos … and once we did that, I thought this was a good way to show the archdiocese what we have.”
For Mr Marsden, the collection is something shared.
“It is important because it does belong to all of us, all the parishes,” he said. “It just happens this exhibition is mainly tied to the cathedral, because that’s what the ACT Heritage Festival this year is about.”
Set against the theme of mid-century innovation and growth, the exhibition traces a defining period in Canberra’s development.
“The idea is to showcase what was done in that massive growth period between about 1928 and 1978,” he said. “From the inception of the parish until the completion of the cathedral.”
At the centre of the exhibition are the original architectural drawings.
“The plans of the original cathedral and a sketch of the façade … that’s probably the centre of the exhibition,” he said. “They’re quite beautiful artworks … and there’s a nice bit of circularity, with the extension designed by the architect’s son.”
Opening the exhibition, Professor von Güttner-Sporzyński said its significance extends beyond the objects themselves.
“These artefacts are material traces of what we did in the past,” he said.
“They’re markers of the history of the Church, this community, and the growth of Canberra.”
FULL STORY
Tracing a cathedral – and a community – through time (By Jeanine Doyle, Catholic Voice)
