This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
35.18482° S, 149.13259° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Alexander Bunyip ate Canberra in a children's book in 1972, and in 2011 the city put up a statue of him.
Michael Salmon's The Monster That Ate Canberra introduced a bemused adventurer who comes up with novel uses for the capital's landmarks – an idea that became a series of books and one of the few pieces of genuinely local children's literature any Australian city has.
Anne Ross's sculpture in Gungahlin Town Park is titled A is for Alexander, B is for Bunyip, C is for Canberra, and artsACT records it as a 2011 work in bronze, stainless steel, glass and light. National Big Things lists identify it as Canberra's Big Bunyip.
That material list is worth noting. Most oversized figures are one substance; combining bronze with steel, glass and integrated light makes this a considerably more elaborate object, and one that works after dark.
The bunyip is also a well-chosen subject in a way that goes beyond the book. It is a creature of Aboriginal accounts of waterholes and swamps that entered settler folklore in the nineteenth century and became Australia's own monster – never described consistently, never captured, and endlessly redrawn. A bunyip statue is a statue of something nobody agrees on the appearance of, which gives an artist unusual latitude.
Gungahlin has accumulated a good deal of public art for a new town centre, including Dean Bowen's Lady With Flowers on Flemington Road and the giant goanna at Girrawah Park.
The file is empty on the height.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
artsACT currently lists the 2011 bronze, stainless-steel, glass and light work in Gungahlin Town Park; national Big Things lists also identify it as Canberra’s Big Bunyip.
ACCESS
Public town-park artwork. Approach on foot; a precise exact position and preferred vehicle arrival can be added after map reconciliation.
