As part of the redevelopment of Wilkinson House, two artworks have been commissioned for the building: a beautiful, sandblasted timber artwork made from the original balustrade in Wilkinson House by Ashley Eriksmoen, and a large dichroic film representation of our Fig Tree brought to life by the extraordinary creativity of Michaela Gleave, our Visual Arts Assistant.
Ashley Eriksmoen, 2025
This Is What an Education Sounds Like (Wilkinson House Staircase)
Reclaimed timber balustrades (framed panels, posts, handrails and trim moulding) from the original Wilkinson House staircase.
Artist’s Statement
This work, This Is What an Education Sounds Like, reconfigures the salvaged timber balustrades from the original Wilkinson House staircase—materials that, for more than six decades, co-produced the daily rhythm of school life. These timbers were not passive, but active collaborators in the physical act of education itself. Between classes, the staircase would have been flooded with activity—the percussive footfall and bright chatter of girls sprinting (or sauntering) up and down. This staircase is inexorably entwined with this education, having repeatedly congregated the girls into bustling moments of social exchange and movement up and down the flights. The girls’ footsteps clacking on the terrazzo treads and resonating with the timber balustrade would produce thunderous rhythms alternating with hushed lulls marking the incremental progression of an education.
In my practice, I recognise the vitality of materials and their persistence regardless of their perceived usefulness to humans. The timber of a deconstructed staircase, no longer conscripted to functional service, remains nonetheless embedded with and inseparable from its lived experience as the staircase. I let the materials lead my making process, following the existing shapes of the materials rather than imposing predetermined concepts or compositions that would strip away their visually recognisable histories.
On my first encounter with the materials in the studio, I spent time arranging and rearranging the pieces without a design in mind, as if they were puzzle pieces without a box depicting their resolution. The parallelograms of the frame and panel balustrade walls, the profiles of the trim moulding and handrails, and the substantial square posts topped by turned finials provided a limited range of shapes, but one that suggested a visual language based on repetition of rectilinear shapes, juxtapositions of texture, and diagonal visual paths.
The making of this work unfolded as an iterative process, a dialogue with the timber pieces in which I continuously re-evaluated and responded to the emerging composition. The existing parallelogram and rhombus shapes of the balustrade panels created optical effects of spatial depth—when arranged in certain configurations, they generate a Necker cube illusion, where the eye perceives the flat surface as alternately receding or projecting, creating ambiguous three-dimensional space from two-dimensional components. This play between flatness and depth became central to the composition’s ability to convey motion and dimensional complexity. The trim mouldings, when joined back-to-back at their right-angled profiles, formed chevron and diamond-tipped rays that suggested beams of light—a formal discovery that aligned with the school’s motto Luceat Lux Vestra (‘Let your light shine’). These material affordances—the parallelograms’ optical tricks, the mouldings’ radiating potential, the varied grain creating tonal shifts—drove the compositional development and enabled the work to deliver movement, rhythm and energy through purely formal means.
The diagonals sweep upward from lower left to upper right, echoing the embodied act of climbing. Cross-rhythms, intersections, and shifts of tone translate the choreography of students moving between classes that animated Wilkinson House for generations. The composition is not illustrative but performative, enacting the entanglement of girls and staircase, in which learning was not an abstract pursuit but a physical practice enacted thousands of times each year. Shaped by the timber’s own logic and memory, the concept and composition that emerged from this puzzle-play was the story of the staircase itself as both a generative site and an active co-producer of movement that is inseparable from acquiring an education step-by-step.
Stairs provide an apt metaphor for educational progression. To climb them is to advance incrementally in horizontal and vertical space one step at a time. In this work, the stylised representation of stairs functions both literally and figuratively, as the physical exertion carrying students to their lessons, and as the intangible escalation of their knowledge, confidence and networks expanding.
Reading the formal composition reveals this narrative. It begins at the lower left with a closed box on a low step, then the form opens up with progressive flights on diagonal trajectories climbing towards the upper right. From the box and ascending steps, lines burst out as if uncontainable. These radiating fans deliver the school’s motto, Luceat Lux Vestra—’Let your light shine’—not as a slogan but as concrete form. Through the cumulative synthesis of thinking and learning—co-created with peers and teachers as they progress forward and upward—each student becomes a source of light. At the upper right corner, the rays break away as sparks launched beyond the foundation provided by the stairs, now self-propelled into unbounded space.
The work’s formal and conceptual strategies resonate with key precedents in art history. Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (1912) shares a similar concern: that movement itself can be the subject—motion broken into rhythmic intervals, collapsing time into a single frame. Louise Nevelson’s black wall assemblages demonstrate how fragments can be unified into a monumental, breathing surface, and how irregular edges—forms that ‘spill’ into space—refuse containment and invite continuation. Contemporary artists such as Christine Lee reveal how even when limited to a single shape, using repetition and wood’s grain direction can generate optical rhythm, allowing material properties to guide composition.
This Is What an Education Sounds Like (Wilkinson House Staircase) addresses the following heritage themes as outlined in the Heritage Interpretation Plan:
Never Dull in Darlo – lived experience, community, and vitality of school life: From my own experience as a boarding student at a girls’ school founded in 1906, I intimately know the rhythm of stairs in dormitories and schoolhouses. This is where girls briefly meet and talk between classes, call up and down stairwells to each other, high-five, stop and talk, even sit and cry. It is where teachers bump into students, pull them aside, remind them of something. The staircase is their highway, their primary corridor connecting all parts of their day-to-day lives, and their physical social networking platform too. This work centres on recreating the rhythmic beat and vitality of that motion, recognising that the staircase materials remain embedded with the lingering ghosts of movement laid into them for over half a century.
Shining Lights – the school’s motto Luceat Lux Vestra and stories of women’s education: The composition’s radiating forms embody the school’s motto, with rays emanating outward to represent students as sources of light—their knowledge, confidence, and connections generated through education shining outward to illuminate others.
On Gadigal Country – acknowledgment of Country and continuity of care: By extending the life of materials already taken, the work practises a modest form of care—reuse as ethical continuation rather than further extraction. Embedded in this ethos is the understanding that we as settlers have already extracted so much; it is wasteful and further disrespectful to discard materials that can be conserved and reused.
The Architecture of Home – the building’s transformation from Gwydir Flats to Wilkinson House boarding to classrooms: By retaining the staircase’s distinctive profiles and traces—the parallelogram panels, the turned finials, the moulded handrails—the work preserves the familiarity of place even as it transforms it, maintaining visual and haptic memory of the building’s architectural character.
In its new configuration, the staircase remains an active participant in the SCEGGS story. The timber continues to bear and reflect the light of learning, testifying that education—like this material—is always made in relation, through motion, rhythm, and shared ascent.
Michaela Gleave, 2025
In another light, 2025
Architectural window film, dichroic and printed vinyl.
Artist’s Statement
When you possess light within, you see it externally. Anaïs Nin
In Another Light is a glass installation that celebrates SCEGGS Darlinghurst as a beacon of light and inspiration. Designed to encapsulate the school’s vibrant spirit and sense of community, the artwork draws upon the school’s motto “Let Your Light Shine”, embodying the radiance of every student’s voice and their journey of self-discovery within a connected and vibrant community.
At the heart of the installation is the use of infrared photography, a technique that reveals wavelengths of light beyond human vision. This artistic choice serves as a powerful metaphor for the school’s role in helping students uncover their unique potential—finding their own light in ways that might not always be immediately visible. Just as infrared imagery reveals hidden layers of beauty and complexity in the world, SCEGGS Darlinghurst provides a nurturing environment where every individual’s inner brilliance is illuminated, encouraged, and celebrated.
The artwork incorporates symbolic and conceptual elements that reflect themes of growth, connection, and transformation. Central to its design is the Moreton Bay Fig Tree, a profound motif representing stability, tradition, and community. With its deep roots symbolising a strong foundation and its expansive canopy offering shelter, support, and boundless opportunities, the tree is an organic metaphor that speaks to the interconnectedness of the school community – a place where students are encouraged to embrace their individuality while contributing to a greater whole.
Inspired by the transformative power of light, In Another Light is defined by its dynamic interplay of form, light, and colour. Dichroic surface treatments create a constantly shifting spectrum of hues. Photographic overlays and pastel gradients evoke the shifting light of dawn and dusk—a metaphor for the liminal moments of growth and self-realization. The layered surface treatments generate depth, movement, and reflection, in constantly shifting patterns that respond to the viewer’s position and the changing light throughout the day. This ever-changing visual experience speaks to the transformative power of light as a metaphor for growth, evolution, and the passage of time.
In Another Light invites viewers to engage with its luminous surfaces as they move through the stairwell, creating an active dialogue between the work, its environment, and its audience. The installation transforms throughout the day, responding to natural light and the movement of people, offering moments of reflection, awe, and discovery.
By merging contemporary aesthetics with a timeless narrative of growth and inspiration, In Another Light celebrates SCEGGS Darlinghurst as a leader in the field of education. The work embodies the school’s role as a guiding light, offering hope, optimism, and innovation, while encouraging students to shine their unique light into the world.