The Royal Easter Show is the biggest agricultural show in Sydney and the ‘pinnacle’ agricultural show in the state of NSW, encompassing agriculture, entertainment, arts and crafts and much more. It draws nearly a million visitors each Easter.

The District Exhibits are one of the wonders of the show, enormous displays of fresh produce, each assembled by a region of eastern Australia. They are very much the craft of hands, assembled in a hectic world and involving significant collaboration by folk in each region. It takes months of planning to devise a theme and find the produce (which has to come from that region). (I should have counted, but there are about six regions in total). As you can see, installation involves significant time, every apple set just so, every element playing its part.

Everything you see – houses, fields, butterflies, flowers – is made from fresh produce (fruit, vegetables, seeds, wool and more), sometimes reimagined in the most remarkable ways.

There’s tremendous ingenuity, as, in this display for instance, raw ingredients become butterflies, a pumpkin becomes a snail shell and eggs form its trail. They are judged on the quality of the produce (not easy in the last few years due to drought) and the artistic qualities of the displays.

With each display are people from the volunteer group involved in making it, usually selling examples of their region’s produce – a bowl of fresh watermelon or pineapple, cheese and biscuits, apples, bananas – the proceeds of which will go towards the cost of next year’s display.

There’s a Quicktime 360 degree view of the exhibits in 2004 here.

There were some other engaging examples of craft at the Show, including children’s craft and recycled craft, but rather than pack them in here I’ll post about them soonish.

If your area has a show with hand-made craft on display, particularly more unusual examples (I wonder if any shows now feature floral carpets?) and you have a link with pictures for others to enjoy, please share in the comments.

(Floral carpets were done by arranging flowers – usually just the heads – and leaves into patterns on a tray, and were a class at some Australian country shows last century. Think of how shells are patterned on shell-covered boxes, and they were something like that, a mosaic of flowers).

All photos above were taken by this post’s author.