It’s a year of bold visual interventions as the national institutions go wild with illuminated art for Enlighten, 2024.

The illuminations on show around the Parliamentary Triangle and around Civic are accompanied by entertainment which has become an interval part of Canberra’s March calendar.

On Thursday night, a group of media and gallery insiders gathered outside the National Gallery of Australia to see Vincent Namatjira’s new commissioned projection and sound-based work, Indigenous All Stars, which lights up the gallery’s 60-metre western façade and feature a video/animation bringing the artist’s works of art to life.

This  coincided with the opening of the major survey exhibition, Vincent Namatjira: Australia in Colour. It was, curator Bruce Johnson-McLean said, the first time there had been major exhibitions by same artist both inside and outside simultaneously.

The illuminations give pride of place to Namatjira’s indigenous heroes, including great historical and political leaders Eddie Koiki Mabo, Vincent Lingiari and his ancestor, Albert Namatjira, sporting stars Adam Goodes, Cathy Freeman and Nicky Winmar, and the Tjilpi (male elders) from Namatjira’s home on the APY Lands of SA. The accompanying original score was created by Namatjira in collaboration with Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara musician Jeremy Whiskey.

One of the jobs of a gallery was to “make artists’ dream come true,” Johnson-McLean proposed, and Namatjira said the work was intended “to bring us all together”.

Meantime, the nearby National Portrait Gallery was partnering with Yuwi, Torres Strait and South Sea Islander artist Dylan Mooney, who was on hand to transform the façade of the building into a giant digital canvas via a live-streamed drawing performance, Dylan Mooney: Drawn Together.

Around the corner, the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House was lit up with illustrations by Brisbane artist Nordacious, James Hillier, whose drawings have adorned billboards in New York’s Times Square.

Hillier’s drawings represent the workers that were indispensable to the functioning of democracy, including the Serjeant-at-Arms, COMCAR drivers and librarians, as well as 1980s memorabilia such as video games and Rubik’s cubes.

Enlighten Illuminations, daily after 8pm from March 1-11. Vincent Namatjira: Australia in Colour, NGA, March 2-July 21. Entry free.

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