Goodbye!?!!

Another sensational week here in Sydney, and now it's time to go! I have been a bit lost in a void of impending displacement all week...places mean a lot to me, and for some reason, I easily fall in love with them ... especially the exploration stage. That's hard for someone who loves to travel so much; I don't find it easy to love and leave places.

I did make progress with research: sent off the book manuscript...hooray!!!!!!!!! and have my conference paper half written. I also had some good discussions with people about the work I'm doing, and feel that it is definitely on track.

I also spent some good time with Sydney:

Tuesday, February 23, 2010: I went to see the Olafur Eliasson exhibit at the MCA. Eliasson has a curious way of locating the spectator with his art, as sometimes you become part of the exhibit. There is one room of photographs hanging on the wall (row after row of related photographs, each framed separately, which reminded me of reading a comic books…how to read the spaces in between – what were the connections between each photograph?) which calls on the spectator to move around the room looking at the walls. But most of the other artwork puts the spectator straight into it, and plays with glass, mirrors and light in curious ways. One exhibit (in a dark room, with black walls, and one spotlight) even uses water, with fine mists spraying down from several nozzles in the ceiling, catching the light from the spotlight, causing fine gossamer threads of colors and rainbows to dance before your eyes, different depending on where you stand in relation to the water and the light. Another room is painted all yellow, and the very bright yellow light on the ceiling causes the people in the room to become the art, as everyone turns a sepia color, like an old photograph. I had a wonderful guide through the exhibit, Robert McMurtrie, who is a PhD student working on the semiotics of art, using a systemic functional linguistic perspective. The coffee and pastry at a French café in the Rocks topped off yet another sensational experience.

Thursday I took the bus down to Circular Quay and started the day with a walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The southeast pylon offers a lookout up top, plus an exhibit explaining its history. Sydneysiders are quite fond of their bridge, and not just because it gets them across the harbour. Almost anyone you talk to who tells you about the bridge mentions that it provided hope for so many as it was built during the Depression. When I got to the top of the pylon, I realized that I was glad to have waited until the end of my stay

to see Sydney from this vantage point because I new what I was looking at. OK, of course we all know this:
















But, if you look at this photograph, you can see way off to the left a green roof - right there is where East Balmain wharf is, where I walked to last Saturday! Curving off over to the right is part of the park I walked through. Had I gone up the top of the bridge pylon my first week, I never would have known that I would become intimately familiar with what I was seeing. Of course, you can't exactly see Norton St. in this photograph, but I know that I lived off over there amongst the trees and the buildings.









After walking over the bridge and back, I went off to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It is a wonderful gallery, with a breadth of quite a few 19th-20th century European (and Australian European) paintings and sculptures, alongside indigenous Australian art work. There was something almost bizarre about walking in and seeing the Aboriginal art work on hollow logs and tree bark juxtaposed with some medieval Italian religious art. I felt I had to get away from that, and walked into a room with a good number of pre-Raphaelites (always a favorite of mine since Birmingham days). It is a great gallery, with lots to see, and free to get into...so next time I come back I need to spend more time there.

And in the Botanic Garden, which is right next to the Art Gallery, and which is also free. The Garden is nestled in next to the city center and the harbour, providing interesting juxtapositions and glimpses of sparkling blue (the day ended up being quite sunny!).

How's this for a tangled web!

Then I hopped on a ferry and headed across the harbour for...of course! East Balmain, where I hopped on a bus and headed straight up to Norton Street.

The final treat was...Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Opera House. And it was! The sensuousness of the set and music was punctuated by intervals out on one of the high terraces of the Opera House, with a glass of chardonnay and a bright almost full moon, watching the lapping of the water in the harbour.

I am now here at the airport, with a 7 hour delay! I guess that's what I get for finding it hard to leave...