
asnowy detail 1
Originally uploaded by bondipublic.
2004 - 2005
Elizabeth Farm Parramatta -
buttons fishing line wire and lead
Bondi Public School Wellington Street
Artist in Residence Programme
The Margaret Whitlam Studio





Students of 4/5/6 spent a few hours with Caroline exploring different forms of sculpture.
Please stand by for the official opening of the
Margaret Whitlam Studio
30th August 2005

Caroline Rothwell has been selected as the inaugural artist in residence at Bondi Public School.
Caroline is a Bondi resident and will use the studio to create her solo exhibition for the Grantpirrie Gallery later this year.
"I would be working towards this exhibition throughout the residency. The children would be welcome to drop into my studio at arranged times and I will show them the work and discuss its progress. They could also come to the exhibition thereby experiencing the larger process of a professional artistâs working life...
My aim would be to maximize the benefits of the residency for everyone concerned... All the works I plan to make are appropriate for viewing by children. I believe kids and adults will engage with it in many different ways.
My art projects (with the children of) Bondi Public will deal in part with local flora and fauna and natural forces. Biological exchange between places and people is territory I have explored for more than five years in several countries.
I am excited about sharing these and other ideas with the Bondi Public School Community."
We welcome Caroline into our school community. We anticipate a mutually stimulating and beneficial relationship with the first of a long line of artists' in residence.

The Selection Committe for the AiR Project meets to decide the successful application.
The artist chosen will be announced during the first week of the school term.
Stay tuned!

It's was a warm sultry night when John Pilger returned to his former primary
school to launch the AiR scheme. He was met at the gate by a former
classmate who had heard about the event and wanted to meet again for the
first time since they were boys. He too had gone into journalism as it
turned out had others from that era of the school when Bondi wasn't such a
glamorous place.
It was a small moment which summed up a big evening. The special links of
your first school and the influence you may never appreciate until much
later. The sense of possibility and coming together and above all joy.
They were all feelings shared by the 60 or so who gathered in the AiR studio
for the formalities very well fed and watered thanks to generous donations
and willing volunteers.
Committee member Jacqui Feeney explained how it all worked and invited
artists to apply. Principal Tralie McMain gave a potted history of the
school and introduced the choir. They charmed the crowd and especially John
Pilger with two songs including Daydream Believer.
Sue Midgley spoke of the need for well funded public education and what it
could produce and told how artist John Hughes had worked with many of the
BPS pupils to produce an animation. The short film called Monsters ( pls
check for me) was enthusiastically received.
It was then John Pilger's turn and he said in all simple honesty how he
wished he had been able to go to the school as it was now and not the rather
harderless caring place it had been in the past.
He spoke of Bondi and the need to celebrate the struggles of everyday people
which were often overlooked by history but which in many ways were typified
by the journey of his old school.
In a moving finale Tralie presented him with the very first of the school's
new medals for merit. It read: to John for all your achievements since you
have left us. Well Done. Bondi Public School.
It was a fitting start to a scheme which we hope will earn its own stripes
and in celebrating the past of one pupil will mark a future way of many
others.