Celebration or Manufacturing Nostalgia?
Constructing Histories of World Expo '88
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600005122Keywords:
World Expo '88, Bicentennial celebrations, historically focused interest, commemorative memorials and festivalsAbstract
Brisbane's World Expo '88 changed people's lives, and the memories of Expo '88 are revered more than 20 years on from the event itself. We are very much looking forward to celebrating the anniversary of this very special event with the people of Brisbane, and recreating the unique atmosphere and sense of wonder that Expo '88 created in Brisbane. (Malcolm Snow, South Bank Corporation CEO, in Hoey 2008a). World Expo ‘88, also widely known as ‘Expo '88’ and locally simply as ‘Expo’, was held in Brisbane from April to October 1988, as a key event of the national Bicentennial celebrations commemorating the 200 years of European settlement of Australia. Other major components of the Bicentennial year – such as the symbolic re-enactment of the voyage of the First Fleet that culminated in the Parade of Tall Ships sailing into Sydney Harbour on Australia Day – together with other significant national events such as the 1956 and 2000 Olympic Games, have generated historically focused interest, which has been manifested and disseminated in the usual way in articles, books and museum exhibitions. Brisbane's World Expo '88, however, appears to be one of the few Australian so-called ‘signature’ events that has also generated its own long-lived series of commemorative memorials and festivals.
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