Layla about studying Fine Arts at the University of Tasmania
Layla s námi odletěla studovat bakalářský obor Fine Arts na prestižní University of Tasmania v Austrálii. Přečtěte si, jak si zvyká na nový život na druhé straně světa! Layla má dvojí občanství a angličtina je pro ni přirozenějším jazykem, proto nám své vyprávění poslala v angličtině:
1. Why did you choose Australia and why University of Tasmania?
Australia had honestly always been somewhere I wanted to go. My mum recently found a notebook from when I was about five or six where I had written that I wanted to be a mermaid in Australia, so I suppose this is me fulfilling that dream in a slightly different way.
I’ve moved around quite a lot throughout my life, and I wanted to put myself somewhere completely new again. Australia felt far enough away to give me another world, new people and experiences I couldn't really predict.
I chose the University of Tasmania because the Fine Arts course gives me the freedom to move between practices. I work with photography, wood, metal, textiles and whatever else a project seems to need, so I wanted a course where those things could overlap rather than having to choose one medium.
2. What were your first impressions of Australia, and how was settling into a new country?
I should clarify that my experience of “Australia” so far is really an experience of Tasmania. I haven’t explored the mainland yet, and I’ve been told many times that Tasmania is quite different.
My first impression was how strangely Czech some parts of Hobart felt. There’s a punk and DIY scene, people love beer, live music and slightly strange country music, and there’s a big hiking and outdoors culture. People also seem very embedded in making and craft, so culturally I found my footing quite quickly.
Settling in was honestly easy. The biggest practical adjustment was driving on the other side of the road. For the first few weeks I had to think about every turn, and now I barely notice it.
3. What surprised you the most about Australia, and what has impressed or interested you the most?
Probably how much my understanding of the landscape has changed. When I first arrived, I saw Tasmania as this huge area of almost untouched wilderness. Through studying Indigenous Lifeworlds and learning about palawa histories and knowledge, I’ve realised that “untouched” is completely the wrong way to think about it. These landscapes hold incredibly old histories of active care, knowledge and management.
Coming from Europe also makes the timescale difficult to comprehend. We call things that are a few thousand years old ancient, while Aboriginal relationships with Country here extend back tens of thousands of years. Learning about that has challenged some of the Western ideas I grew up with about nature, knowledge and what it means to care for a place. That has probably been the most unexpected and interesting part of being here.
4. What are the school, your classmates and teachers like, and how are you finding the course overall? What does a typical school week look like?
I love the course. The technicians are fantastic, my classmates are incredibly friendly, and there’s a lot of exchange between everyone. People share skills, ask about each other’s projects and help each other figure things out.
A typical week might start with a critique or a discussion about readings, but a lot of my time is spent actually making. I move between the woodworking workshop, metal workshop and photography darkroom depending on what I’m working on, with lunch and chill outside with friends somewhere in between.
I’m also a student representative on the Fine Arts Course Advisory Committee now, so I get to bring student opinions into conversations about the course and how it could develop. The thing I value most is being able to come in with an idea and have the facilities, technicians and freedom to actually figure out how to make it.
5. Have you managed to find a job?
I haven’t started working yet. I’m taking four classes this semester, and once I arrived I decided I would rather properly commit to university than immediately fill every free day with work.
I’d also like my next job to have some connection to art, culture or creative work if possible, rather than automatically going back into hospitality. We have a long summer break coming up, so I’m planning to use that time to work and hopefully find something I’m genuinely interested in.
6. Where do you live, and what do you like about your accommodation?
I live in a share house in Hobart with people outside of university, which has been really good for me. It means I have completely separate circles: people from uni, people from home, and people I’ve met through both.
I also much prefer having an actual house rather than living in student accommodation. I can cook, have people over and make the space feel like mine. I’ve also made a very close friend through where I live, which is probably the nicest and least predictable thing to come out of choosing a random share house on the other side of the world.
7. What have you managed to see and visit so far?
I’ve been very lucky because quite a few of the people I’m close to are locals, so my introduction to Tasmania has mostly been through them. Weekends often turn into someone suggesting a hike, beach, creek or drive and everyone getting into a car.
So far I’ve explored parts of the east coast, Spring Beach, Port Arthur and Nubeena, Hartz Mountains, the Huon Valley and lots of smaller places in between. I’ve also been invited to family homes and places that I probably never would have found as a visitor.
I like that I’m not really seeing Tasmania through a tourist checklist. Most of the places I remember are places somebody here wanted to show me because they personally love them.
8. What has been your funniest or most memorable experience so far?
I genuinely can’t pick one big moment. What I’ll probably remember is how good the very normal days have been. Driving somewhere with friends, swimming somewhere freezing, ending up at a gig, spending all day making something or accidentally turning a short outing into an entire day.
Homesickness is definitely real when everyone you grew up with is on the other side of the world, but I’m also very aware that this is a part of my life I’m going to remember for a long time. I’m very happy to be here right now.
9. Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
I think studying internationally is valuable partly because you can’t really control what you’re going to get from it. I came here for a Fine Arts degree, but so much of what I’m learning isn't contained within the course itself. It comes from the people around me, having to build a life from scratch, learning about a place I knew very little about and being exposed to completely different ways of thinking.
I think that uncertainty was exactly what I was looking for when I chose to come this far away :))
