The National Art School was Bob Carr's baby, so the school has been government subsidised for the past x years.
When Carr left, the safety of the school got to the point where it would have to be sold or become a higher priced independent to survive. The problem is that since it's government owned (it's former East Sydney Technical College (TAFE)), technically the government are the ones deciding its future.
So last year, NAS took to the streets for a protest to either remain independent or hopefully get Macquarie Uni to buy us out over UNSW's COFA (College of Fine Arts).
What you've gotta understand here is a bit of history:
The National Art School is one of the only art schools, and I think it is the only one in the Southern Hemisphere, that uses the old system where the masters teach the apprentice. You've also got to learn a lot of history, something that is left out at COFA, and a good majority of the people who go to Uni at NAS are aged between 28 and 70: that is, it lets people in that most Uni's would normally shudder at doing.
COFA on the other hand, while being technically named a school of fine arts, is more about graphic design. That said, their photographic facilities are amazing, but NAS focuses on drawing, painting, sculpting, ceramics, printmaking, and photography, as well as history... and you're literally being taught by artists. In the painting department, Adam Cullen is one of the guys teaching there.
Macquarie don't have a good hold in the fine arts uni's, and they were set to buy the campus out but their new chancellor got smart and pretty much pulled out of the deal earlier this year.
Strategically he's probably right. There isn't a lot of money to be made in this place.
Likewise, things got
ridiculously out of hand when students in
last year's protest thought it would be great if
they decided to write on the Macquaire building they were protesting out in front of to help their cause.
So now NAS either has to remain independent (which the government would probably have to help oversee) or be bought out by COFA which, if you can tell by any of the protests I've shot, is pretty much what no one wants but what will probably end up happening.
edited by gstark - spelling.