Exploring our links with Brazil
Kerry-Anne Cousins
Connections – Brazil and Australia
Gallery of Australia Design, 44 Parkes Place, Parkes. Until June 19.
Did you know that Captain Arthur Phillip brought the prickly pear to Australia from Brazil? The plant provided a habitat for the insect which, when crushed produce cochineal which was used to dye the red coats of the English soldiers.
This is just one snippet of fascinating information brought to light by the exhibition at the Gallery of Australian Design that investigates the connections between Brazil and Australia. The project is a joint partnership between the Embassy of Brazil and the University of Canberra with input from other institutions, companies and academics.
The exhibition offers tantalising glimpses of the wealth of material available to the curators. It has been cleverly divided into digestible sections.
Brazil and Australia were part of the same supercontinent 167 million years ago and thus, as the exhibition points out, share similar fauna and flora. The movement of the tectonic plates that caused the continents to drift apart over millions of years is reduced to a series of graphics and to a display video that splendidly produces this effect in a matter of seconds. One highlight of this section on Gondwanaland is the beautiful photograph by Jim Frazier of a fossilised fruiting cone from a species of plants common to both South America and Australia.
Rio de Janeiro was important during the very early days of the settlement of the east coast of Australia. Ships called in there for fresh supplies of food on their way across the Atlantic ocean. Arthur Phillip received a warm welcome when he sailed into Rio with the First Fleet in 1787. He had spent some time seconded to the Portuguese navy and had visited Brazil a few years earlier when he was befriended by the Governor of Brazil, the Marques do Lavradio.
Early European artists who sailed into Rio de Janeiro were captivated by its exoticism. They included the well travelled August Earle (1793-1838).
In a watercolour painting of c.1822, Earle depicts himself in a romantic pose high on Corcovado Mountain overlooking Rio, exclaiming at the wondrous view of the harbour laid out before him.
Commerce and environmental sustainability is also an important link between our countries – eucalyptus trees from Australia now provide timber for a big forestry program. An Australian delegation attended the United Nations conference on the environment and development which Brazil hosted in 1992 and which was the first world environment summit.
However, what may have special appeal to Canberra visitors is the link between our capital city and the Brazilian capital Brasilia. Both cities of vision, planned by architects to incorporate modernist principles of architecture and urban planning. Both cities are “cities of the automobile” with wide avenues and generous expanses of space surrounding public buildings.
In Brasilia, “Super Quadra” apartment building were designed to be an architectural symbol of equality for all residents. Super Quadras all followed a generic floor plan and each formed the side of a square with and inner open public space.
In the 1970s, my husband and I lived in Supra Quadra South (SQS) 114 on the southern wing or “asa” of the city and, despite the concept of an egalitarian ethos, we were envied because our Super Quadra had grass and trees.
As with many planned cities, Brasilia, in its early days, was not a city many people loved. It was too vast, too different from the human scale of architecture found in Rio and other Brazilian cities.
Living there in the 1970s, I was alienated by the sweep that seemed cold and overpowering. I felt imprisoned in its formulaic Super Quadras, which were bounded by and uncrossable super highway.
Only in the beautiful cathedral of Nossa Senhora Aparecida, with its flying angel suspended from its glass roof, did I feel in harmony with the architecture.
There is, however, a delightful photograph in the exhibition of young street sellers plying their wares near one of these monumental buildings. It illustrates that the passage of time, the exuberance and warmth of the Brazilian people and the growth of nature in tropical Brazil have humanised and appropriated this architectural landscape.
This successful exhibition brings Brazil a little closer to us and makes us think again about the links that join us to this vast and complex nation that played no small part in the early days of colonial Australia.
There is also a series of seminar in connection with this exhibition. Visit gad.org.au for deails.
Kerry-Anne Cousins
Connections – Brazil and Australia
Gallery of Australia Design, 44 Parkes Place, Parkes. Until June 19.
Did you know that Captain Arthur Phillip brought the prickly pear to Australia from Brazil? The plant provided a habitat for the insect which, when crushed produce cochineal which was used to dye the red coats of the English soldiers.
This is just one snippet of fascinating information brought to light by the exhibition at the Gallery of Australian Design that investigates the connections between Brazil and Australia. The project is a joint partnership between the Embassy of Brazil and the University of Canberra with input from other institutions, companies and academics.
The exhibition offers tantalising glimpses of the wealth of material available to the curators. It has been cleverly divided into digestible sections.
Brazil and Australia were part of the same supercontinent 167 million years ago and thus, as the exhibition points out, share similar fauna and flora. The movement of the tectonic plates that caused the continents to drift apart over millions of years is reduced to a series of graphics and to a display video that splendidly produces this effect in a matter of seconds. One highlight of this section on Gondwanaland is the beautiful photograph by Jim Frazier of a fossilised fruiting cone from a species of plants common to both South America and Australia.
Rio de Janeiro was important during the very early days of the settlement of the east coast of Australia. Ships called in there for fresh supplies of food on their way across the Atlantic ocean. Arthur Phillip received a warm welcome when he sailed into Rio with the First Fleet in 1787. He had spent some time seconded to the Portuguese navy and had visited Brazil a few years earlier when he was befriended by the Governor of Brazil, the Marques do Lavradio.
Early European artists who sailed into Rio de Janeiro were captivated by its exoticism. They included the well travelled August Earle (1793-1838).
In a watercolour painting of c.1822, Earle depicts himself in a romantic pose high on Corcovado Mountain overlooking Rio, exclaiming at the wondrous view of the harbour laid out before him.
Commerce and environmental sustainability is also an important link between our countries – eucalyptus trees from Australia now provide timber for a big forestry program. An Australian delegation attended the United Nations conference on the environment and development which Brazil hosted in 1992 and which was the first world environment summit.
However, what may have special appeal to Canberra visitors is the link between our capital city and the Brazilian capital Brasilia. Both cities of vision, planned by architects to incorporate modernist principles of architecture and urban planning. Both cities are “cities of the automobile” with wide avenues and generous expanses of space surrounding public buildings.
In Brasilia, “Super Quadra” apartment building were designed to be an architectural symbol of equality for all residents. Super Quadras all followed a generic floor plan and each formed the side of a square with and inner open public space.
In the 1970s, my husband and I lived in Supra Quadra South (SQS) 114 on the southern wing or “asa” of the city and, despite the concept of an egalitarian ethos, we were envied because our Super Quadra had grass and trees.
As with many planned cities, Brasilia, in its early days, was not a city many people loved. It was too vast, too different from the human scale of architecture found in Rio and other Brazilian cities.
Living there in the 1970s, I was alienated by the sweep that seemed cold and overpowering. I felt imprisoned in its formulaic Super Quadras, which were bounded by and uncrossable super highway.
Only in the beautiful cathedral of Nossa Senhora Aparecida, with its flying angel suspended from its glass roof, did I feel in harmony with the architecture.
There is, however, a delightful photograph in the exhibition of young street sellers plying their wares near one of these monumental buildings. It illustrates that the passage of time, the exuberance and warmth of the Brazilian people and the growth of nature in tropical Brazil have humanised and appropriated this architectural landscape.
This successful exhibition brings Brazil a little closer to us and makes us think again about the links that join us to this vast and complex nation that played no small part in the early days of colonial Australia.
There is also a series of seminar in connection with this exhibition. Visit gad.org.au for deails.
