Frederika Pere, Bachelor of Arts (Honours)

I'm projecting two words the words ‘raw river’ and I’m projecting it above Fiona Fell’s work which is a collection of a ceramic sculpture that she's made for many years that went through a flood in Lismore the last time the levee banks broke.

I was going to project the word time above her work and ended up deciding that time was too literal. I actually mean the river to represent time so up the river is the time that's yet to come down the river is the time that's passed and across the river is the now and that is ever-changing.

My degree took me into architecture lighting design I graduated and was a carer for disabled people, went to an appointment somewhere in a waiting room and read a Monument magazine that was there. There was an article about the new lighting designers being arty people and I thought that's job I could do that!

I was very, very lucky and I very quickly became involved in the Opera House and Federation Square working for people who had the cream of work there was to have and what's ended up being a specialisation is working in museums on display lighting and heritage buildings.

We make immersive experiences like water effects all across a floor in life that you walk through with a huge projection of a corroboree on the side of a river but the floor I've added the water effects too.

Having come from Sydney moving into a more rural area was what I really, really enjoyed about coming to university in Lismore is that I learnt that I didn't need to live in the city and in fact I was happier living in the bush.

The biggest skill what I learnt was crit sessions. Crit sessions of people's artwork where the individual puts their art up for the class to discuss and give constructive criticism.

You're dealing with people's sensitive egos when they've put their art up and you have to be very diplomatic and that skill I've taken into a profession where you have ten designers sitting around a table and it's the same thing their egos are involved in what they've made and you sometimes have to get it changed a bit as diplomatically as you can without hurting anyone and I think that skill came from here.