An Afternoon at the Pink Pond

It’s Friday afternoon in the NGV’s Grollo Equiset Garden and from my wire bucket chair beneath a canopy of perfectly pruned wisteria, I’ve got an uninterrupted view of the garden’s headline act, Pond[er] – a blushing aquatic expanse of interactive art-chitecture, designed to draw our attention to the “challenges facing Australia’s many catchments and river systems”.

It’s a noble pause for thought to be sure – unchecked disrespect of our natural resources will, after all, be the end of us – but after brief consideration of the state’s beleaguered estuaries, my mind arrives somewhere else entirely, somewhere much more pleasant: in a city, full of people, who were not talking about Covid. It had been a while.

Gone was chat about RAT tests and iso and border closures. Back was surreptitiously revelling in the intimate details of a stranger’s suspected case of hives, the impassioned monologue of a four-year-old on the seriousness of bee stings and the wistful, decades old memories of a grandmother’s time in the south of France.

The “pink pond” – essentially a 21 by 16 metre paddling pool – was unveiled as the garden’s surreal centrepiece in early December and swiftly became a social media darling. The alluring, rosy waters have been popping up on Instagram feeds all summer long and now into autumn, despite being little more than a shallow, concrete receptacle painted pink. The Victorian salt lake-inspired installation, with its many humble charms, seemed to capture the city’s imagination right at the time we needed. Not least of all with its potential for great eavesdropping.

But it’s also free to enter and highly photogenic. And if you sit long enough in this little slice of urban paradise, pondering, of one kind or another, is certainly what you’ll find yourself doing. To venture to the pink pond is to seek tranquillity – and maybe a photo op – but it’s also to be reminded that tranquillity, like art, is largely subjective.

In times like these, no Spotify playlist can compete with the idle chitchat of strangers. And sitting in the sun, contemplating the skin condition of a complete stranger, the lingering insularity brought on all of us by the pandemic finally took a welcome sidestep – the warts (or in this case hives) and all experience that city life should be, was back.

Ok, so it might not have been the kind of pondering artist James Carey had in mind when he conceptualised the iridescent paddling pool, but it was working for me. And I was hardly alone in finding my own way to enjoy the space.

In the pond’s cool waters, the exuberant delight of soggy, splashing preschoolers seemed impossible to repress. Their mothers trailed behind them, issuing vague, futile calls for calm as they cooled their own heels and let their minds wander. Nearby a couple in their autumnal years communed in silence – with the pond, and with their phones – clearly past masters in the fine art of tuning out.

Across the concourse a woman sporting a fur checkerboard bucket hat had her phone at the ready. Approaching the pond she snapped a handful of photos, made her way briskly around its perimeter – careful to avoid the convoy of prams piled high with towels and nappy bags and water bottles and snacks – and left, almost before she arrived. Sitting with art, just like sitting around with other people’s children, certainly isn’t for everyone.

Wandering listlessly here and there were intimate little packs of teens with matching shoes who seemed as oblivious to the squealing children as they were to the beds of carefully selected Victorian wildflowers designed to “highlight the beauty, precariousness and temporality of our natural ecology”. The teens’ notion of quiet contemplation seemingly hinged on awkward lap-sitting, punctuated by intense bouts of phone use. Selfies and cute poses abounded, and art by their measure seemed something to activate, not ponder.

As I made my way to leave, two security guards in sharp suits with dark glasses and earpieces stood in the shade of a young oak tree, sharing jokes in hushed tones, making the most of their shift. “It’s nice, huh?” one of them asked me as I passed them by. And yeah, it was.