It's official: the days of pure art are over, and the big glorious mish-mash of disciplines is the new norm when it comes to the modern-day art school experience.
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And leading the pack is the Australian National University's own School of Art which is gearing up to open its annual Graduating Exhibition this week.
From glass and music to maths and painting, sculpture and medical research to ceramics and architecture, all the old rules are out the window and multidisciplinary practice is the order of the day.
For head of school Denise Ferris, mixing media and disciplines across the broader campus was now a necessity when studying art, and encouraged across the board.
"The works display broad engagement with multidisciplinary practice across print, wood, drawing, animation, painting, photography, metal work, ceramics, sculpture, textiles and installation, as well as engagement with other ANU schools," she said.
For example, glass art student Sarah Humphrey has created musical instruments which she has also learnt how to play, thus blending craft, music and performance, and exploring these layers before a live audience.
Meanwhile, sculpture student Martin Rowney used discarded gauges and light fittings from the John Curtin School of Medical Research in referencing the two Nobel Prizes developed there on the human immune system and brain synapses.
Many art school students were also going global as a result of their studies, like photography student Ciara O'Brien, who is also studying for a Bachelor of International Relations.
She spent time this year on the Island of Lesbos in Greece, volunteering and documenting the effects of the recent massive influx of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Her large-scale image, Life Jacket Graveyard, shows a large pile of discarded life jackets, water bottles and other human detritus, under a blue sky and devoid of people.
She said seeing the pile of jackets was as haunting as the famous pile of shoes on display in the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.
"The emotion I felt standing in that spot itself, it was probably the most moving thing I did while I was on the island," she said.
"I think it's also more approachable because there're no people in it. We're being swamped and flooded with images of so many people and it's hard for us to process, and people are getting compassion fatigue."
She said she opted to display the image on a large scale to contrast with the multitude of small-screen-sized images we are bombarded with each day.
The ANU School of Art's 2016 Graduating Exhibition opens Saturday, November 26, and runs until Sunday, December 4.
