Previous Recipient Career Update

Anna Cordingley

In the European autumn and winter of 2013, the Kristian Fredrikson Memorial Scholarship took me to Germany and the UK on a bender of theatre, opera, dance and fine art voyeurism.  The ambition was to form ties and forge relationships with choice opera houses, theatre companies and (most importantly) Warburgian aficionados, and this I did.

Basing myself along the Landwehrkanal canal in east Kreuzberg, I attended the Volkshochschule each morning, Barrie Koskie’s rehearsals at Komische most afternoons and the Schaubuhne, the Volksbuhne, the Philharmonie, the Staatsopera etc etc of an evening. I devoured the entire program of Ruhrtriennale in the country’s west.  And on the last of the warm days in October, staged a street art intervention with the children of Liegnitzer Strasse to rival all other design pursuits…

While living in Berlin, I designed the State Library of Victoria’s Victor Hugo exhibition (opened mid 2014); the research for which took me to France and Guernsey for discussions with conservators and curators at Maison de Victor Hugo, Hauteville House, the Musee Rodin and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Come December and across the North Sea, I attended lectures marking the eightieth anniversary of the clandestine transportation of Aby Warburg’s formidable Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek from Hamburg to London, and was humbled to meet the grandson and great grandchildren of the man himself.

Now in 2015, I’m designing for Sydney Festival, Melbourne festival, STCSA, Griffin & Arts House, lecturing at the Victorian College of the Arts and looking after Louis, the other magical project to grow from my time in Berlin.