If you need someone to add retro funk to the Heritage Festival, who ya gonna call?
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Trevor "Bus-Shelter Man" Dickinson - who else?
His posters for the 2019 Heritage Festival are out of this world, inspired by this year's theme of space and the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, but also by Canberra's own essential quirkiness.
He has created three posters for the 2019 Heritage Festival: the Telstra Tower as a rocket, the Shine Dome (aka the Martian Embassy) finally on Mars, and a Canberra bus shelter on the moon (but will the timetable allow for the most direct route?).
Dickinson has found a loyal following with his whimsical images of Canberra's bus shelters.
"I was doing the bus shelters when I was asked to do the illustrations [for the Heritage Festival] so the first thing I thought of was putting a bus shelter on the moon and it just fitted," he said.
"It doesn't look out of place, it looks part of that era. So that's really where it started.
"And the other ones really followed on from that. Telstra Tower has always looked like a rocket.
"And the Shine Dome - I've always called it the Martian Embassy, which I heard when I first came to Canberra - it just felt appropriate to put it on Mars.
"Canberra does have this slightly futuristic quality about it, which I quite like."
The Shine Dome image also includes some other other celestial additions, including the Starlight Drive-In sign, the Carillon (looking like some martian outpost), the restaurant on top of Red Hill and a paddle boat from Lake Burley Griffin reimagined as a space craft.
The images are popping up on promotional postcards and on limited-edition tote bags, which will be given away at various locations.
"I will allocate bags for each session, so once they’re gone, they’re gone," Dickinson said.
The bags will be given out at:
- April 4 in Petrie Plaza, 11am to 2pm, near the merry-go-round;
- April 7 at the Old Bus Depot Markets in Kingston from 10am to 4pm; and
- April 11 and 12, Level 1 at the Canberra Centre, overlooking the fountain.
Dickinson will also be conducting a tour of Canberra's iconic bus shelters as part of the Heritage Festival on April 13, from 10am to noon. The cost for the tour is $50.
Email: canberramodern@gmail.com
Website: https://canberramodern.com/events
The 2019 Heritage Festival is on in Canberra and the surrounding region from April 13 to May 4. The schedule of events is at https://www.environment.act.gov.au/heritage/heritage-festival
