At 8am students are already arriving at the studios. The Public Art course has a great space, or at least I thought so until Yijia, my host and lecturer on the course, says that other disciplines have much better studios. Sculpture, for example, has a cavernous and fancy space, but it’s not as scruffy as Public Art and so I don’t think it has as much charm.
The morning starts with student presentations to the Dean about how their plans for the Water Town exhibition are proceeding. Some of the groups have made great progress, however the Dean has stern words for those who have wasted time. The exhibition opens on 9 Dec and two of the groups haven’t even agreed a location for their work, let alone finalized a proper budget (good to see undergraduate students having to think about this aspect). Negotiating space for artworks in the Water Town should have been underway a long time ago, as both local government and residents have to agree to plans, which is likely to be about as straightforward as a drunken water snake.
I give feedback wherever I can, but it is a slow process as only Yijia and one student (who asks me to call her Grace) can understand any English. I decide to focus my attention on the group who are making a miniature mock-up of their “Floating Lawn”, as communication through making is an easier option. Pointing and miming is preferable to staring in blank silence at laptops filled with budget sheets/paperwork I can’t actually make any sense of.
The afternoon is full of hard work, wild hand gestures and laughing. The students are lovely. Once work is underway and they realize that their plan might actually happen, they get giddy with excitement. It won’t just be a digitally rendered floating lawn, it will be an actual one! The day ends with us walking down to the University Lake to see if their mock up will float. They lower the bamboo, string, matting and grass creation into the water and phew, it floats. They still have some hurdles to cross though – the design they have is for a lawn of 5 x 5metres and it has to survive on the river for 20 days…
