In 2013 we commemorate the centenary of Canberra. Given the location of our Centre in Australia’s bush capital, we propose to dedicate the year to thinking about the creation of urban spaces and the role of public imagination and affect in configuring them as sites of value.

Contemplating the urban is to contemplate a fraught realm of emotions, passions, dreams and imaginaries. In making cities we remake ourselves, as one of the founding figures of urban sociology, Robert Park, said in the sixties.

The city is the domain where the imagination comes spectacularly into play and manifests itself in many registers: architectural, archival, cinematic, aural, visual, graphic and literary. As we generate and regenerate our cities, we collectively generate and regenerate ourselves.

Visiting Fellows will be working on urban history, sociology, architecture, public culture, memorialization, and representation of cities in literature, art, film and digital media.