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Not long ago I read this sentence somewhere on the web. “Dear Sydney – especially those of you feeling a bit uninspired, you should get to the Ken Unsworth exhibition on Cockatoo Island.” 


I thought “why not?” Inspiration is one of those funny things. It comes and goes and when it wants. You can force it out or wait around for it to roll along like a bus without any seats because everyone who gets on is too excited to sit down. 


Allison didn’t know if she could come with me on Saturday but I had to go. It wasn’t just for the exhibition. I wanted to be stranded in a stark, run down landscape, walking around through relics of development with nothing but the sun above me and wind beside me. I wanted to photograph this place floating in the middle of the harbour. 


So I bought her a little plastic camera, a lomo, a white Diana. It was a deal breaker. Just the ticket to get on that bus and stand around like lunatics loving all of the same shit that bored us before, just because our hearts beat a little faster.


Saturday came around and I tried to sleep in but it was no use. I had to get out there. Everything else was in the way, an unwanted hurdle until I stepped onto that isolated soil.


The train was hot and repressive. People knocking elbows and making useless noise. I looked over at Allison but she was reading to pass the time. I couldn’t, all that energy was churning away inside, the sort of stuff that could power machinery.


When the ferry pulled away from Circular Quay it all changed. Cutting waves and icy winds let you know your moving. I couldn’t stop telling Allison that ferry’s were the way to travel as my eyes darted around the boat washing against the coast. She just nodded and sat quietly but I knew she was loving it just as much as I was. The fresh air and teetering transport changes your perspective. The world always makes a little more sense when the ground it unsteady.


On arrival we picked up a map from the smiling old lady on the wharf but knew we wouldn’t use it. 

“Where should we go?”

“Anywhere you want.”

We knew we were going to go everywhere and the order didn’t matter. The island didn’t really matter. We just needed somewhere to go. Somewhere dramatic so we could see everything through a view finder.


I raced through student exhibitions while old artists stood in the corner with their black turtlenecks and bald hair criticizing the MCA like they were arbiters of taste. We tried every door of every warehouse just to see if we could get in, look around, get bored and get out.


The only thing that made us slow down was a room full of miniature grand pianos hanging from the ceiling as if they were about to wash onto shore. Its moment like that you realise the human brain is something else.

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