SCA undressed

Forget the whole schtick about the wagging art student drinking turpentine, University is making art purely academic.

Image Credit: Solomiya Sywak

Nestled in the backstreets of the University of Sydney (USyd) campus, pushed into oblivion just like the Conservatorium of Music, the Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) coddles the next generation of artists. Established in 1974 as an independent college before joining USyd in 1990, the art school has hosted prominent alumni such as Ben Quilty, Fiona Lowry and Claudia Chan Shaw. A contemporary art school reactive to formal art institutions, focusing on the conceptual nature of art making with an expectation for technical ability instilled from its portfolio acceptance procedure. 

However, it begs the question: will the next generation of worthy artists actually be bred from the SCA?

Just like any other school, there’s a special culture built around it, and just like any other art school — a special myth. Ask any R.M Williams business student and they’ll say that art students sniff paint, smoke cigarettes and are wasting university funds on fake Berghain experiences at inner-west warehouse raves. 

Instead, it’s a highly competitive rat race to be constantly creating without burn out. Large projects and conceptual and technical experimentation, which would take a professional practising artist years to complete, are squashed into sometimes as little as six weeks, testing students abilities and patience.

We are just like every other university student, leaving everything to the last minute in a scramble of paint and clay, procrastinating by building a niche instagram influencer persona to share our art, or just learning how to ride a skateboard ever precariously around the halls. Someone in our studio is making ice sculptures, but instead we keep our cans of mixed drinks and wine chilled hoping they don’t explode. Another leaves all their precious posca pens on display, and again we borrow hoping they don’t notice the now fading pigments. The cold damp halls are turned into exhibition spaces and gallery openings, just another excuse for free wine and cheese, and the hope to network (never includes networking, only the free food) and look like you’re actually achieving something.

This is how the narrative of the pretentious Visual Arts student is born.

Forget the whole schtick about the wagging art student drinking turpentine, University is making art purely academic. The focus on conceptual practice urges artists to delve into research, explaining each and every brushstroke. Although it does build a developed practice, this mode of artistic education isn’t for everyone; with purely aesthetic-based artists getting a real kick in the butt from just taking pretty iPhone photos and calling it ‘street photography’. It also pushes for a realisation of new mediums and modes to express highly intricate ideas.

Students rival the limits of what previous generations thought could be art.

Art for art’s sake. 

Art without boundaries.

Chatbots = art

Baking bread = art

Pig heads = art

Virtual reality = art

But is there any sense of originality among art students anymore?

To answer my question, who knows what lurks inside the SCA? 

Gone with the struggling artist and in with the totally stressed out one. The Old Teachers’ College is overrun by students hungry for recognition, rising from the rubble hoping to be noticed. USyd almost always overlooks the Con, but the art kids have managed to wriggle their way onto main campus. 

We’re here to stay.