We’ve opened our eyes and we’re flying up high by Cat Rabbit

The stories, characters and worlds of children’s television leave an indelible mark on our memories and help to shape our childhoods, our worldview, and – in some cases – our careers.

When we invited six artists to create a new work based around their relationship with Australian kids’ TV, we discovered that still, decades on, these artists continue to draw from and return to those memories as part of their artistic practice to invoke the feelings and sensations they experienced at that time.

Here, Cat Rabbit discusses how children's television impacted her childhood and inspired her work, 'We've opened our eyes and we're flying up high'.

Cat Rabbit

We’ve opened our eyes and we’re flying up high, 2022

Animated film, felt, wool fibre, found cardboard, found fabric, recycled PET filling, thread, armature wire, foam

How did our television content shape your childhood experience?

I was born in 1983 on the North-West of Tasmania, so the mainstays of my TV roster were Round the Twist, The Genie from Down Under and Lift Off! I felt really immersed in those worlds and I was particularly in love with the characters. I imagined myself best friends with Linda, riding my bike real fast away from the Gribble Gang; I was Penelope’s firm but fair BFF who’d step in and tell her not to be such a posh twit; I’d hang out with the Lift Off! crew and help them stand up to Mr Fish’s unreasonable demands. The shows really welcomed you in, so if things at school were confusing or hard (as they so often were at that age), these pockets of television offered a fun and comfortable realm to jump into, just for a little bit.

Tell us about one of your fondest and strongest memories of watching Australian television.

In primary school, If it was a rainy day, we would all be herded in to the library after school to wait for the bus. While we waited we were treated to back-to-back episodes of Round the Twist. I was on the Second Big Bus, the last bus to arrive, so I would get at least two episodes in. I used to pray for those rainy afternoons!

How has ACTF content influenced your art practice? 

Given my practice so often draws on those feelings of child-like wonder, the ACTF content sits in that bank of influence from which I make frequent transactions.

Describe your artwork and the story behind it. 

My artwork draws on one particular memory from primary school when grades 3 and up were all gathered in the library for a ‘very special treat’. We had no idea what was coming! The teacher wheeled in the telly (this act in itself was exciting) and explained that we were about to watch a very important new show, made in Australia, and we were watching it at the same time as lots of other school kids around Australia.

What could this important new show be? It must be some sort of rare, fine art with intense significance. The excitement was palpable. We felt important; like we were about to be let in on the closely guarded secrets of the world. When the TV was turned on we were not prepared for the weirdness that ensued. Backpacks that talked? An eerie, faceless baby that everyone inexplicably found endearing? The Wakadoo Cafe? Had they accidentally put on the wrong show? In hindsight, it was so wonderful that we were given permission to watch this strange and fantastical show. Not only that: it was delivered in class time, and with a sort of reverence for its importance. ‘Imagination is the key’ is what it taught me. What a lesson! This short animation attempts to encapsulate the ‘what on earth am I watching’ moment I experienced on that fateful day.

I want to take everyone back to that primary school library they knew, to evoke the smell of old books, stale biscuits and squashed bananas, to a place where perhaps they had a similar memory of discovery and wonder.