RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON

Greg Ferris

I feel fortunate to have been in the wrong place at the right time. In my artist statement at the Space YZ Yearbook, I wrote how studying at what was Nepean College of Advanced Education was a happy accident, how a rejection from NIDA led me to Kingswood and an Associate Diploma in Visual and Performing Arts. This led to ‘advanced standing’ qualifying direct entry into the first year of the new BA. This meant that I ended up at Nepean for four years instead of the customary three. This extra year helped me focus and develop, almost as a proxy Honours year.

There was so much I had no idea about at high school when I finished Year 12, but I did know one thing: it was time to leave home. Arriving in the big smoke from the Mid North Coast of NSW, there was a genuine naivety from this poor country boy regarding Sydney and perceptions of the western suburbs. It was all one big place, so initially it was easy to rent in Parramatta, halfway between the city and study. However, I had an inkling of the greater Sydney dynamics the week someone got set alight in the park near Kingswood Station, the usual path for Nepean students who like me travelled by train. At least we were kept on our toes, on both our physical and educational journeys.

Given we were the first cohort of the BA, Nepean was a petri dish for experimentation, especially given the Performing Arts cohort, and the Combined Studies theory classes (referenced in some of the other texts on this site). Still, these classes have continued resonance and impact on my own art and teaching practice, with its mix of performance, art practice and the cinematic. A case in point: a recent collaboration with fellow class of ‘87 alumni, theatre graduate Anni Finsterer for the virtual reality short film Sympathetic Threads, funded by Create NSW as part of their 360 Vision initiative (2018).

Experiments in practice were, for the most part, encouraged, failure a learning experience. There were many failures, particularly as I moved from painting and printmaking into photography and ultimately animation. Film, video and later computers became my mediums of choice and I was fortunate as Nepean was incredibly well resourced with audiovisual equipment and staff that were always accommodating, no matter how silly the idea. Academics were also active in their own explorations of the moving image, especially the incomparable Peter Charuk, a constantly encouraging and inspiring presence.

Nepean was very much a social and creative hub, with friends and collaborators enduring to this day, some included in the Space YZ exhibition. Curatorial work enabled me to engage with several UWS graduates along the way. It led to the exhibitions New Territories II (1995) at Casula Powerhouse and Kahanamoku and Beyond (1996), which had exhibitions at both Casula and Campbelltown Bicentennial Art Gallery, now C-A-C. Both shows featured artists working with new technologies, including ‘the internet’. The latter exhibition featured a live video link between the galleries, where artists and visitors could interact. Peter Fitzpatrick was one of many UWS graduates in these shows — later he and  I collaborated on the stage version of Dorothy Porter’s The Monkey’s Mask, which premiered at the Belvoir Theatre in the late 1990s. Peter Charuk and I often exhibited our interactive works together, notably at the Australian Centre for Photography and have remained in close contact over the years.

I’ve also got fond, albeit occasionally sketchy memories of the move to Peachtree Studios from Gascoigne Street, memories that become sketchier after a sometimes extended lunch at the Peachtree Inn. It was here that I was introduced to a drink known as the Blue Lagoon, which soon became a staple between the West Coast Coolers and the occasional gin and coke - a mixed drink that apparently I invented as no one had ever heard of it before. Or since for that matter, as reviews of the drink have often compared it to drinking fly spray. Obviously, I was quite the sophisticate by this stage of the degree.

Like many, I was the first in my family to go on to higher education, privileged without privilege. Other contributors to this site have similarly reflected on the learning opportunities for lower-income students of free university education. I won’t dwell on it apart from noting that I would not be in the position I am now — a career academic in the arts. Without this opportunity, subsequent opportunities that eventuated from this degree may not have eventuated - from postgraduate studies to creative practice, research, gallery representation and many opportunities for collaborations. I’m confident that this applies to countless other graduates from this period, of this institution and higher education in general, most of whom were also the first in their family to study beyond high school. That a number of these graduates have or continue to teach the next generation of art practitioners, while maintaining their own practice, is a testament to the legacy of Nepean CAE and UWS.

UWS was where I started my teaching career, and I’m indebted and grateful for the experiences and opportunities over the years. The short-sightedness of its closure indicates the lack of value attributed to such institutions and the arts and humanities in general. No amounts of Blue Lagoons, West Coast Coolers or gin and cokes will help to dull that pain.

Artist and filmmaker Gregory Ferris works across a variety of media environments, including interactive media, installation, virtual reality and traditional moving image. He teaches Media Arts at the University of Technology Sydney and is represented in Australia by Kronenberg Mais Wright.