The lush green lawns of the Australian War Memorial have been engulfed in a sea of red, a striking tribute to the sacrifice of the men who fought and died in World War I.
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A field of 62,000 hand-crafted woollen poppies, one for every Australian soldier who died in the war, has been "planted" in the war memorial's sculpture garden.
Installed in the lead up to the 100th anniversary of the Armistice Day, the sprawling poppy field is the product of a personal tribute which morphed into an community-driven national phenomenon.
Fibre artists Lynn Berry and Margaret Knight set out in 2013 to stitch 120 poppies to be laid at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, as a tribute to their fathers - Wal Beasley and Stan Knight - who fought in World War II.
The gesture prompted an outpouring of interest from the community, as people from across Australia knitted and delivered their own hand-made flowers.
The poppies have been displayed at London's Chelsea Flower Show and at Cobbers Memorial in Fromelle, France, before their arrival in Canberra.
Berry told the unveiling of the poppy field on Friday that more than 55,000 people had contributed to the project.
A team of 25 Canberra volunteers knitted close to 5000 of the poppies.
Crafted individually, many of the poppies include personal notes and items, such as buttons from soldiers' tunics.
Some of the flowers are entwined with yellow stitching as a tribute Aborignal soldiers, while others include swathes of white, for nurses, and purple, in honour of animals involved in the war.
"While this is a tribute to those who have fallen, it is a tribute to those who came together in the community to create it," Berry said.
"We have heard different stories every day.
"We had a little two year old, sitting on my lap, saying 'I can make it myself' and then I had a 102 year old say that he couldn't possible make a poppy - and we sat there and did.
"One day, 4000 poppies turned up with no name on it."
The poppy field - which was designed by architect Philip Johnson - is part of a wider series of public events at the war memorial in the lead up to Remembrance Day on November 11, including late night openings on Friday and Saturday and artistic productions.
