For Laurie Anderson – wife of Lou Reed, co-curator of Vivid Live festival, recording artist for thirty years, collaborator with such names as William S. Burroughs, Philip Glass, Frank Zappa, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, and Andy Kaufman – co-curating Vivid has been an excuse to come to Sydney for only the third time in her life.

“It’s been different every time,” she says, in her Four Seasons hotel room where we are looking out over the harbour. “I’m somebody who loves ports. I live in New York; I’m addicted to the water. Every morning I wake up and just watch the little boats, the big ships, all sorts of things crawl into the harbour and it just makes me happy. I just love when there’s a place with a big open door where people can come and go – it’s not landlocked, it’s not provincial, everyone’s welcome. There’s no thing like ‘Who are you? What are you wearing?’ – it’s not like that.”

The way Laurie speaks is naturally in stories – her cadences lilt and pause like she is sitting at the fireside, “It’s gorgeous,” she continues. “There’s so much coastline. It has all these great little coves – I wish people travelled more by boat. There are a lot of ferries, a lot more than in New York. We’re trying to get our ferry system working but it’s not as cool as this, though. And the Hudson is a complicated thing to navigate; the currents are scary. I really enjoy it here – I like being in a city that’s big, ambitious but chilled out. It’s an interesting combination and not an easy thing to achieve that balance.”

It’s the wrap-up party for Vivid tonight and Laurie has found the whole experience quite rushed, and was hoping for a bit more time to meet artists and chill out. “It’s been a blur, frankly. I usually come and do one show here, but I did ten different things. Every day was a different event and of course I was sometimes just poking around on the edge… Maybe it’s also that when you’re director you’re running around making sure that everybody’s okay and all the things are going to come off sort of like you hoped and that everybody gets what they need so it’s different to just coming in and doing your thing.”

With so many different aspects to the festival and so many amazing artists contributing, including My Brightest Diamond, Boris, Bardo Pond, Rickie Lee Jones and Doveman, I’m curious to hear what Laurie’s highlights were. Turns out, it was pretty much just the dogs, and further, that she’s a little obsessive about dogs.