ONE of Canberra’s most successful art initiatives of recent years, the installation festival Contour 556, has morphed into the Canberra Art Biennial, opening in early October.

Originally themed around the height above sea level of Lake Burley Griffin, Contour 556 has now been joined by two other contours – 606, the University of Canberra’s and 656, the National Arboretum’s.

I caught up with director Neil Hobbs as he put the finishing touch to plans for the burgeoning festival, which is now funded by ArtsACT and EventsACT and is expected to extend across more public, private and gallery spaces in the inner north and south of Canberra.

Hobbs says the change of name, as he and his collaborators considered how to cope with the quick expansion of Contour 556, locked into the contour of the lake and city only.

“We thought, let’s have three slices of the Canberra, layered landscape,” says Hobbs, himself a landscape architect by profession, adding, “the whole point of the biennial is to uncover the history of Canberra’s layers and how they are placed in the land.”

There’s a lot of Canberra’s history involved, a great deal of which is hidden, he says. “For instance, the lake hides the Molonglo River Basin. So much of what we’re doing is about what’s hidden.”

Bringing this idea to light this year will be “Both shall row (O Waly, Waly)” by Ian Marr, a pair of undulating slabs placed on supports just below the water surface of the lake, so quite literally hidden.

The inclusion of the National Arboretum’s Contour 656 in the wider biennial works very nicely numerically, Hobbs notes, but it’s also an institution he’s always wanted to have involved in the event, too.

Right now, the National Arboretum is in the first flush of its new Forest Sculpture Gallery, unveiled on September 9. Works of a more substantial nature, now collected by the Arboretum, have special relevance to the old Contour 556.

Jeremy Blincoe and Michael Van Dam’s huge stainless steel chain sculpture, “Cloak”, exhibited at the 2020 Contour 556 at the Civic Pool, for instance, will be installed permanently in the Himalayan Cedar Forest. 

Marr’s “A Literary Map of the Molonglo”, from the 2016 Contour 556, has been acquired and goes on permanent display in the Pin Oak Forest.

Contour 606 works quite nicely numerically, too, Hobbs says, and as with the Arboretum, there is a contour 556 link as Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens’ sculpture “Second Skin”, shown at the lakeside event in 2018, has been taken into the University of Canberra collection. 

“So, there’s a nice link that shows how our festival is not just a temporary event,” Hobbs says. 

The line-up of 61 contributing artists is a who’s who of contemporary Canberra creativity, including several dance artists, and takes place over a broad range of venues, including Springbank Island, Henry Rolland Park, Thor’s Hammer Mixing Room Gallery and King O’Malley’s pub.

Among the more visible highlights will be Adam Norton’s “Giant Badges”, a series of large round colourful text-works looking like old school lapel badges of over a metre in size and installed around the lake. 

Canberra Art Biennial, various locations around Canberra, October 1-29. All details at contour556.com.au

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