I spent my morning today at the cultural centre, first at the State Library and then at GoMA. Someone on twitter remarked surprise that Librarians and gallery staff, as public workers, would be working on a public holiday. This reminded me of a comment made by UQ Senior Deputy VC Prof Michael Keniger’s at a previous GoMATalks event. Prof Keniger’s point was the cities require public spaces to act as ‘points of certainty’ against the constant upheaval of privately held city land. I asked, through twitter, whether a place like the cultural centre would fit his conception of a public space. He suggested locations of a more geographical and, dare I say, natural bent: the river, fig trees. It sounded a lot like New Farm Park.
This might expose my ideological background, but I see the intellectual exchange embodied in the cultural centre to be crucial to a place’s publicity. On this measure, parks require a particular contingent social infrastructure which seems to come immediately alongside a library.
Reading Radical Brisbane today, I came across a nice passage which has a tangential relevance.
Libraries, however, are crucial. It has long seemed to me that the Left collects books as surrogate for the wealth accumulated by the Right, which puts more of its trust in the police than in the power of ideas.
(Humphry McQueen)