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Air China Boeing 747-400P (B-2472) Canberra Airport Arrival

  • 4 days ago
Black and white digital photograph by artist Megan Kennedy of a Boeing 747 flying in a cloudy sky. Landing gear is down, tail marked with "B-2477." Calm and serene atmosphere. Touching down on Runway 35 just before noon and operating under CCA031, an Air China Boeing 747-400P ferries Chinese politicians, officials and staff into Canberra Airport from Brisbane - a 1 hour and 34 minute flight. Although it isn't an official Boeing Designation, the "P" or "Presidential" suffix indicates a 747-400 adapted for presidential or VIP transportation. This particular registration - B-2472, MSN 30158 - is 25 years old, first flight and delivery to Air China in 2000, line number 1243. Both B-2472, and its counterpart tail number B-2447 are converted for regular domestic passenger flights when not on government assignments. At present, the Air China has nine Boeing 747's in service, seven active, two parked. With the global shift toward efficient twin-engine aircraft, sightings of four-engined giants are becoming increasingly rare. An even rarer sight at Canberra Airport, which sees only light international movements, the low and slow heavy is always a welcome visitation.
Black and white digital photograph by artist Megan Kennedy of a Boeing 747 flying in a cloudy sky. Landing gear is down, tail marked with "B-2477." Calm and serene atmosphere. Touching down on Runway 35 just before noon and operating under CCA031, an Air China Boeing 747-400P ferries Chinese politicians, officials and staff into Canberra Airport from Brisbane - a 1 hour and 34 minute flight. Although it isn't an official Boeing Designation, the "P" or "Presidential" suffix indicates a 747-400 adapted for presidential or VIP transportation. This particular registration - B-2472, MSN 30158 - is 25 years old, first flight and delivery to Air China in 2000, line number 1243. Both B-2472, and its counterpart tail number B-2447 are converted for regular domestic passenger flights when not on government assignments. At present, the Air China has nine Boeing 747's in service, seven active, two parked. With the global shift toward efficient twin-engine aircraft, sightings of four-engined giants are becoming increasingly rare. An even rarer sight at Canberra Airport, which sees only light international movements, the low and slow heavy is always a welcome visitation.

Touching down on Runway 35 just before noon and operating under CCA031, an Air China Boeing 747-400P ferries Chinese politicians, officials and staff into Canberra Airport from Brisbane - a 1 hour and 34 minute flight. Although it isn't an official Boeing Designation, the "P" or "Presidential" suffix indicates a 747-400 adapted for presidential or VIP transportation. This particular registration - B-2472, MSN 30158 - is 25 years old, first flight and delivery to Air China in 2000, line number 1243. Both B-2472, and its counterpart tail number B-2447 are converted for regular domestic passenger flights when not on government assignments.


At present, the Air China has nine Boeing 747's in service, seven active, two parked. With the global shift toward efficient twin-engine aircraft, sightings of four-engined giants are becoming increasingly rare. An even rarer sight at Canberra Airport, which sees only light international movements, the low and slow heavy is always a welcome visitation.



Erasure, Snow - November

  • Nov 8

Wrinkled cream-colored fabric lies on white snow. Bright light creates soft shadows and emphasizes texture. Fresh spring snow from the Snowy Mountains in Thredbo. Photographed by textile artist and photographer Megan Kennedy.

In 1953, Robert Rauschenberg famously bought and subsequently erased a drawing by Willem de Kooning, pointing in many ways to the reflexive psychological reconstruction of or longing for an expected thing through applied absence. Well above the valley, past the tunnelling melt, the snow can linger. Standing near the peak in early November, only the dark rock of the cordillera and the occasional foot trail disrupts the white coverage. Even amongst the semi-cleared slurry tapering closer to the lift station, there are unadulterated and fresh islands. When photographing snowy landscapes in sunny conditions, you overexpose slightly or risk an automatic mid-grey render. But to our eyes, the range was hard and bright, and the sun vaulted the surface to redden our faces when the sun went down.


Almost inevitably I wondered about the landscape beneath. The coverage was still deeper than my looking suggested - we tested well up our jean-legs. But in the heights of Kosciuszko National Park, the whiteness still stuttered the landscape with the beauty of visual witholding. And by the end of summer I know, with the landscape of the Snowy Mountains in maximum view, there is a longing for the hiemal season again. This is what I considered, pushing balled, crystalline snow into the fibres of my wrinkled cotton cloth, dramatically off-white compared to the coverage of the most recent fall. A soaked but otherwise visually blank material square, memory, and the natural visuality of subtraction and manifestation.    

PIN X - ANCA Gallery Brooch and Wearable Art Exhibit

  • Sep 9
Yellow woven brooch with red stitch patterns on a white background, adorned with a shiny, irregularly shaped silver chain. A handmade textile brooch made by Canberra artist Megan Kennedy against a plain white background. The pin is pierced with a soft solder baby pin, to contrast the vivid and impressively stitched amount of thread.

Five of my handmade brooches for PIN X (PIN 10) are currentrly on show at ANCA (Australian National Capital Artists Inc.) gallery, Canberra. I've been making textile-based brooches for a little while now, selling them on my Etsy under PEURL Designs. The opportunity to be able to exhibit alongside fellow wearable-art makers is really exciting, and I'm happy to see my work in a gallery context.


The show is on until September 13 2025.

Pins can also be purchaed online here.



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