Perth Garden Stories is an augmented reality experience developed for the Lotterywest Boorloo Heritage Festival, presented by the City of Perth across four of Perth's historic public gardens. The work brings the layered histories of Queens Gardens, Stirling Gardens, Harold Boas Gardens and Russell Square back into the landscape itself - revealing archival photographs, Whadjuk Noongar place names, colonial records and community memories within the parks where these stories unfolded.
Each garden experience is designed to be discovered on location. Visitors scan a QR code to open the AR directly in their browser, then use their phone to reveal a layer of history across the park around them.
The AR experience uses architectural details already present in the gardens - from the ornate iron gates of Queens Gardens to the sandstone pillars of Stirling Gardens - as framing devices for the content. Recreated at life-size and placed back into the landscape, these structures hold archival photographs, animations, text and layered imagery within them, turning familiar landmarks into portals through which each garden's history comes into view.
Drawing on material from the City of Perth Cultural Collections and the State Library of Western Australia, the AR layers bring archival photographs, maps, records and stories back into public view. Selected photographs were carefully animated using generative AI, adding subtle motion and depth to still images so they could come alive within the landscape.
Queens Gardens sits on a landscape shaped by water, industry and reinvention. Once known as Perth Flats, the site served as the colony's first racecourse before being turned over to brickmaking, with clay used in buildings including Perth Town Hall and St George's Cathedral. The AR experience traces this transformation from marshland and clay pits into a landscaped public garden, revealing the layered history beneath its lily ponds, ornamental gates and civic monuments.
Stirling Gardens is Perth's oldest public garden, layered with stories of place, ceremony and colonial settlement. Known to Whadjuk Noongar people as Kuraree, it was an important gathering place long before becoming a camp for Governor James Stirling, a temporary Government House and, later, a botanical garden. The AR experience reveals these overlapping histories, from song, story and meeting on Country to the garden's role in testing imported plants, some of which still remain today.
Russell Square sits between the memory of two former freshwater lakes, once important sources of food and water for Whadjuk Noongar people. Later set aside as a public reserve, the square became part of Northbridge's richly multicultural story - from Chinese market gardens and Greek migration to the Italian community that helped shape the area's identity. The AR experience traces these layered histories, revealing Russell Square as a place of water, migration, gathering and community life.
Harold Boas Gardens sits within the memory of Perth's former lake and wetland system, once a vital source of food, water and plant life for Whadjuk Noongar people. Later developed as Delhi Square, with clock-like paths and a central garden, the park evolved through the gold boom years before being redesigned in the Paradise Garden style and renamed in honour of architect and town planner Harold Boas. The AR experience traces this layered transformation — from wetlands and colonial reserve to the shaded civic garden known today.
As the use of generative AI in cultural and archival contexts continues to evolve, we believe responsible practice begins with consultation, consent and care. For Perth Garden Stories, generative AI was used to bring selected archival photographs to life within the AR experience - introducing subtle motion and depth to still images drawn from the City of Perth Cultural Collections and the State Library of Western Australia.
Working with the City of Perth, we ensured that all archival material was used with the appropriate institutional permissions in place, and that the treatment of historical imagery was handled with care and in keeping with the values of the collections from which it was sourced.
Designed to extend the life of the experience beyond the festival, Perth Garden Stories can be revisited and shared through a simple website link. Because the AR runs in the browser, visitors can return to the gardens at any time, share the experience with others, or explore the stories from home - giving the City of Perth a lasting digital asset that continues to connect new audiences with the histories of each place.
