8 June 2004

Professor Ian Buchanan

Provoking thought and inspiring actions that unlock Darwin’s potential to become a leading creative tropical city formed the basis of Charles Darwin University’s opening free Symposium for 2004.

Initiated last year, the Charles Darwin Symposia Series is designed to mark the University as a space where diverse ideas about contemporary life and issues in north Australia can be debated by a broad cross-section of the community.

As a free ‘festival of ideas’ the Series attracts high quality speakers blending local and national, academic and professional, and lay perspectives on issues of importance to northern Australia and our future.

Creative Tropical City was held 2-3 June at the University’s Casuarina Campus and focused discussion on how the Northern Territory Capital can thrive through the risk of embracing and growing its own creativity and identity.

With more than 130 people attending, the Creative Tropical City Symposium challenged assumptions about what makes a city successful and how one should go about revitalising a city.

Images from Creative Tropical City have been provided here. A detailed program of Creative Tropical City, including the full list of speakers and their presentations is being prepared at www.cdu.edu.au/cdss.

Clare Martin	Curtis Roman
Right to left, Dave Topliss, Professor Birch, Professor Mark Lyons	Dr Chris Gibson
Dr Deborah Stevenson	Dr Martin Youg
Dr Shaun Wilson Professor Negar Mottahedeh Kevin Rogers
Indigenous Dancers Kath Albury Professor Mark Lyons
Frank van der sommen	Larry bannister
Professor David Birch	Professor Bob Wasson
Lindsay Brown (left) and Tracey Newman Professor Stephen Garnett Stephen Gray