Back in the late 2000s, I undertook a weekly pilgrimage. Each Saturday, I would catch two trains to the opposite side of Melbourne, walk for 30 minutes along a sun-baked main road, then stand sentry for several hours in an airconditioned room as still and silent as a chapel. The task was equal parts dull and stressful: nothing ever happened and the minutes crept by with agonising slowness, but hypervigilance was required as at any moment priceless artwork could be destroyed on my watch. All it would take was a single errant toddler or pen-wielding vandal.

It was not, on its face, an enviable gig—not least because it was unpaid. But it was work I’d gone out of my way to pursue. I’d submitted a formal application, complete with written references, and then undertaken several days of training, all for the privilege of volunteering my time in these hushed spaces. For I was an art history student, and this was Heide: the storied birthplace of Australian modernism. The place where Sidney Nolan created his Ned Kelly series, where Angry Penguins had been formed, where movers and shakers of the art world fomented revolution over long evenings of wine-fuelled conversation. It was the closest thing we had to hallowed ground.