The Kambah Turns 50 exhibition is as eclectic as the people who live in Canberra's biggest suburb.
There is a bit of everything in the exhibition to celebrate the 50th birthday of Kambah, its residents and its unique character, including planning that created a mix of housing and a suburb that embraced its natural environment.
Kambah artist Dr Louise Curham spearheaded a mammoth effort to launch the group exhibition which is at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre until October 12.
Dr Curham moved from Cook to Kambah 10 years ago - and some people couldn't believe she was trading north for south.
But she was lured by the Bullen Range Nature Reserve and the Murrumbidgee River and now lives close to both in the 1970s, architecturally-designed Urambi Village.
She says Kambah can often get a bad rap. "Our reputation is mixed yet I've found many Kambah people and alumni love this place," she said.
The exhibition includes historical items and recent art inspired by the suburb.
"What makes Kambah special is its amazing environment and also our amazing mixed community," Dr Curham said.
"We've got all sorts of people from all sorts of walks of life here. One of the joys of this whole Kambah Turns 50 thing has been bringing people together.
"I really want us to recognise how precious that is and that our culture is slightly different from other parts of Canberra."
The artwork is mostly distinctly Kambah. Life-long Tuggeranong artist Bec Schafer has a block print artwork showing the Kambah Covid testing station in 2020, called Covid Conga Series 2. In McTaylor Take, Barak Zelig has provocatively placed a McDonald's sign at the top of Mount Taylor, his artwork a reminder to not take the open space for granted.
There are historical gems including excepts relating to Kambah in the 1972 Fred Schepisi-directed film Tomorrow's Canberra about the National Capital Development Commission's planning of the national capital. And even photographs by the famed Max Dupain who was engaged by the NCDC in the early 1970s to capture images of the Kambah Health Centre.
Current Namadgi School students produced paintings of Kambah for the exhibition and ephemera such as cookbooks produced by local schools decades ago are also on display.
Old photographs on display range from a genteel gathering of smartly dressed men and women at Kambah Pool more than 100 years ago, in 1911, to the co-op supermarket that operated for a couple of years in the 1970s on Mannheim Street.
There is also a delightful home movie of the Bennet family who loved on the sprawling sheep station Kambah, which gave the suburb its name.
Leonie Andrews has made a textiles homage to Kambah's famous sheep.
Domenic Bahmann, who designed the I Love Kambah t-shirt for the 50th anniversary, also has artwork in the exhibition.
Ian Marr and Cathy Morison have work in the exhibition, with Dr Curham contributing her own black and white street photography showing slice-of-life Kambah.
Dr Curham said the exhibition couldn't have happened without the support of the arts centre.
