Guiding Tours on Cockatoo Island

Part of my internship involves taking tours around Cockatoo Island. Since November last year, several COFA students have been taking seminars on the biennale and its themes, doing research on individual artists and giving speeches to the class as prep for the tours. We also used the research to write some of the educational material, like the student newspaper and teacher info kits.

The tours started the first week of the biennale, with anywhere up to 20+ people. It is a little nerve wracking talking to that many people, but after a while you get pretty confident. There is the occasional person that drives you nuts, but most of the people have been really lovely. It's so good to get a group that really wants to get involved and asks questions, trying to get the most from the tour. And often you learn things from them, or have some people with incredible experiences - like the woman who had worked in a shanty town in Cape Town so was really interested by Kadar Attia's work, or people who had relatives who worked on the island in its heyday, and its great to see people inspired by the works.

And then you get the ones who ask the tough questions, my fave was today - so what makes an artist an artist and their work a piece of art? Ahhhh...... definitely keeps me on my toes!