national visual art education conference · 2016-01-18 · your participation at the 2016 national...

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201621–23 January

National Visual Art Education Conference20–22 January 2016

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Cover imageJim Lambie Sound system (Grid system) 2015 (detail), vinyl, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, The Poynton Bequest, 2015

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Dear Delegates

The National Gallery of Australia welcomes delegates from across Australia and beyond to the 2016 National Visual Art Education Conference.

The program for 2016 focuses on New directions: practice + innovation + learning, creating an interdisciplinary dialogue between galleries, academics and teachers. This program reflects some of the most pertinent issues within visual arts education today, as speakers from renowned institutions such as The Frick Museum, New York, and Harvard University present on current global developmental trends within art education. Practitioners will also present their work and discuss how it is shaped by the current arts milieu.

The plenary program ensures that speakers are able to engage with delegates, explore concepts and present their research in an environment that is accessible to all. Additionally, we welcome delegates to explore their personal interests through the breakout sessions. Here, a range of concurrent conference papers, showcases and practical workshops will be on offer, allowing delegates to tailor their experiences to reflect their own professional needs. In particular, the workshops offer an excellent opportunity to expand practical skills in a range of media areas. The workshops are scheduled in a variety of locations around Canberra, providing an opportunity to engage with the NGA’s expansive community of artistic contacts and its world-class collection. Specifically, special viewings of exhibitions such as at Tom Roberts at the NGA and The Last Temptation: the art of Ken + Julia Yonetani at NGA Contemporary allow delegates to engage with diverse and exciting Australian art.

The social program organised for the National Visual Art Education Conference also gives delegates an opportunity to not only meet fellow teachers from around Australia, but also curriculum leaders, arts practitioners, academics and NGA staff to build strong interdisciplinary links within the sector. This year a reception will be held on the first evening of the conference in addition to the conference dinner in Gandel Hall on Thursday.

Your participation at the 2016 National Visual Art Education Conference is a valued contribution to the field of art education. Together classrooms, curriculum and collections can be integrated to extend the artistic education of people everywhere. We thank you for your support of the 2016 conference and hope you enjoy this opportunity to expand your knowledge, enrich your practice and network with your colleagues. We wish you an enjoyable and enriching experience over the coming days.

Conference organisers | Learning and Access National Gallery of Australia January 2016

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The conference organisers wish to acknowledge the generous support of the following organisations, without their support the conference would not be possible.

The National Visual Art Education Conference is made possible with the support of Tim Fairfax in honour of Betty Churcher

The National Visual Art Education Conference is an accredited program through the ACT Teacher Quality Institute.

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Information

Conference dates and times

Wednesday 20 January 9.00 am – 5.30 pm (8.00 am for registration) Conference reception and Tom Roberts exhibition viewing 5.30–8.00 pm

Thursday 21 January 9.00 am – 5.30 pm Conference drinks 5.30 pm | Conference dinner 7.00 pm

Friday 22 January 9.00 am – 5.00 pm

NGA admission times

10.00 am – 5.00 pm

James Turrell Within without 2010 optimum viewing times 5.20 am and 8.20 pm see nga.gov.au/Turrell for details.

NGA Shop

Conference delegates receive a 10% discount in the NGA shop for the duration of the conference. Please show staff your conference lanyard to obtain the discount.

Connect

Share your comments, thoughts, photos and connect with colleagues and the NGA via social media

/NationalGalleryofAustralia

/NatGalleryAus #NVAEC2016

/nationalgalleryaus

Free Wi-Fi is available throughout the NGA

Contact us

Recorded information: +61 (0)2 6240 6501 General information: +61 (0)2 6240 6411 For visitors with mobility difficulties: +61 (0)2 6240 6411 General email enquiries: [email protected] Membership: 1800 020 068 Conference enquiries: [email protected] | +61 (0)2 6240 6524

Context of the conference

The National Visual Art Education Conference brings together classroom and museum educators, artists, curators and academics to explore ideas and issues around visual arts education in its many contexts.

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Program

Wednesday 20 January8.00 am Conference registration Gandel Hall

9.00 am Welcome Introduction: Gerard Vaughan Welcome to Country: Paul House Conference address: The Hon Mitch Fifield

James O Fairfax Theatre

p 6

9.45 am Keynote session 1 Introduction: Gerard Vaughan Keynote: Christian Thompson


pp 7–8

10.45 am Morning tea Gandel Hall

11.15 am Plenary session 1 Introduction: Kirsten Paisley Speakers: eX de Medici, Callum Morton and Cameron Robbins


pp 8–10

12.45 pm Lunch Gandel Hall

2.00 pm Plenary session 2 Introduction: Rose Cahill Speaker: Phil Lambert


pp 10–11

3.00 pm Afternoon tea Gandel Hall

3.30 pm Breakout session 1 See program details for venues

pp 12–25

5.30 pm Conference welcome reception and viewing of Tom Roberts exhibition

Gandel Hall

Thursday 21 January9.00 am Keynote session 2

Introduction: Katie Russell Keynote: Professor Howard Gardner


pp 25–26


11.00 am Keynote session 3 Introduction: Katie Russell Keynote: Professor Ellen Winner


pp 27

12.30 pm Lunch Gandel Hall


pp 27–38

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1.30 pm Workshop: The art of linocutting Megalo Print Studio + Gallery

p 48

3.00 pm Afternoon tea Gandel Hall

3.00 pm Concurrent workshop program 1 Gandel Hall and Collection Study Room

pp 48–49


pp 38–41

4.30 pm Plenary session 3 Introduction: Jessica Ausserlechner Speaker: Deborah Hart Includes viewing of The Last Temptation: the art of Ken + Julia Yonetani at NGA Contemporary

James O Fairfax Theatre and NGA Contemporary

pp 42

5.30 pm NVAEC networking drinks NGA Street Cafe

7.00 pm Conference dinner Master of ceremonies: Mathew Frawley

Gandel Hall p 42

Friday 22 January9.00 am Keynote session 4

Introduction: Michelle Fracaro Keynote: Rika Burnham


pp 42–43


10.30 am Plenary session 4 Introduction: Denise Ferris Speakers: Julie Rrap, Jan Nelson and Justine Varga


pp 44–47

12 noon Lunch Gandel Hall

1.00 pm Plenary session 5 Chair: Katie Russell Speakers: Dr Shaune Lakin, Jaklyn Babington, Katie Russell, Rose Cahill and Mirah Lambert


pp 47–48

2.30 pm Workshop: Traditional Victorian coiled basketry Small Theatre p 50

2.45 pm Australian National University workshops ANU School of Art pp 50–51

3.00 pm Concurrent workshop program 2 See program details for venues

pp 51–52

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Abstracts and biographies

Wednesday 20 January9.00 am – 5.00 pm (registration from 8.00 am)

WelcomeIntroduction: Dr Gerard Vaughan became Director of the National Gallery of Australia in November 2014. A graduate of the universities of Melbourne and Oxford, his career has been divided between academia and the world of museums and galleries in both Australia and the United Kingdom. As an art historian his interests are broad, concentrating on the social history of art and specialising in the study of taste and art collecting, both private and institutional.

In 1994 he became inaugural Director of the British Museum Development Trust in London, where he was closely involved in planning, and funding, the rebuild of the British Museum with Norman Foster’s Great Court at its centre. He returned to Melbourne in 1999 to become Director of the National Gallery of Victoria with a brief to oversee the gallery’s complete redevelopment, also undertaking new programs for major exhibitions and collection development. After stepping down from the NGV in 2012 he returned to academia for two years at the Australian Institute of Art History at Melbourne University.

Welcome to Country: Paul House has multiple Aboriginal ancestries; however, he identifies as a descendant of Ngambri-Walgulu man Henry ‘Black Harry’ Williams. He was born in the centre of his ancestral country, at the old Canberra Hospital. House plays the Didgeridoo (Yidaki) and has performed for former prime ministers Paul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard at the national ‘Welcome to Country’ for the opening of the 42nd and 43rd federal parliaments. Other significant events include the opening of the National 20/20 summit in 2008 and welcoming the King and Queen of Spain during their 2009 Australian visit. House’s community responsibilities include membership of the Ngambri Local Aboriginal Land Council. He started his public service career in the Commonwealth department of Aboriginal Affairs, followed by roles in both New South Wales and Australian public sector agencies. House holds a Bachelor of Community Management from Macquarie University and a Diploma of Government (Management).

Conference address: The Hon Mitch Fifield, Minister for Communications, Minister for the Arts, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Digital Government, Manager of Government Business in the Senate.

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Keynote session 1Introduction: Dr Gerard Vaughan (bio on page 6)

Christian Thompson: ‘Creative responses to Australian material culture in the Pitt Rivers Museum Collection: parallels between We bury our own and Mining the museum’

Inaugural Charlie Perkins Scholar and Australian multidisciplinary artist Christian Thompson will discuss his doctoral research project ‘Creative responses to Australian material culture in the Pitt Rivers Museum Collection: parallels between We bury our own and Mining the museum’, a comparative assessment of two exhibitions responding to the museum archive: the work of African American artist Fred Wilson (born 1954), Mining the museum at the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, 1993 and his own groundbreaking exhibition We bury our own at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 2012. Thompson explores the emergence of the museum as a medium for artists as institutional critique. He places his own work into the dynamic lineage of artists including early encounters such as Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Broodthaers, Andy Warhol, through to recent encounters such as Hans Haacke, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Renée Green, James Luna and Marina Abramović. Thompson will outline a range of artistic practices and engage a process of ekphrasis to give detailed comprehensive accounts of both exhibitions, demonstrating how studio-based research is able to reveal hidden or previously unseen histories obscured by the imperial gaze. He will discuss the differences between his own and Wilson’s approach in order to expose how the work might shift in significance or meaning when it is placed inside and outside the museum context. Thompson introduces a term that he coined, the idea of ‘spiritual repatriation’, which emphasises the repatriation of this essential quality—what might be called the aura of such collections, rather than the physical object, moving things into the spiritual realm away from the material. Outlining how museum collections are able to contribute to artistic practice and how artists can contribute to the ongoing exhibition, critique and appreciation of museum collections, Thompson elaborates on the Pitt Rivers Museum collection and its subsequent influence on recent work, and redefines the title We bury our own as a metaphor applied to a wider picture.

Christian Thompson was born in 1978 in Gawler, South Australia (Bidjara people). He is an Australian born, London-based contemporary artist whose work explores notions of identity, cultural hybridity and history. Formally trained as a sculptor, Thompson’s multidisciplinary practice engages mediums such as photography, video, sculpture, performance and sound. His work focuses on the exploration of identity, sexuality, gender, race and memory. In his live performances and conceptual portraits he inhabits a range of personas achieved through handcrafted costumes and carefully orchestrated poses and backdrops. In 2010 Thompson made history when he became the first Aboriginal Australian to be admitted into the University of Oxford in its 900-year history. He holds a Doctorate of Philosophy (Fine Art), Trinity College, University of Oxford, Master of Theatre, Amsterdam School of Arts,

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Das Arts, The Netherlands, Masters of Fine Art (Sculpture) and Honours (Sculpture), RMIT University, Melbourne, and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba.

Thompson has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, having been included in exhibitions such as Australia at the Royal Academy for the Arts, London; We bury our own at The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford; SOLO at Modern Art Oxford, Oxford; Contemporary Indigenous Art in Australia: the Sordello Missana Collection at the Valencian Institute of Modern Art, Valencia, Spain; The other and me at The Sharjah Museum, United Arab Emirates; Hijacked III at QUOD Gallery, Derby, United Kingdom; Shadow life at Bangkok Art and Cultural centre, Bangkok, Thailand; and The beauty of distance/Songs of survival in a precarious age at the 17th Biennale of Sydney.

Thompson’s works are held in major international and national collections and in major public and private collections including: Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands; and University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane.

TQI 2.4

Plenary session 1: Contemporary Australian artistsIntroduction: Kirsten Paisley is the Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Australia, joining the NGA in August 2015. Prior to this she spent 11 years in regional Victoria, most recently as the director of Shepparton Art Museum (2007–2015).

Her achievements with SAM include the $2 million redevelopment of the museum, which won the museum the 2012 Museums Australia Best Small Museum of the Year Award. In 2013, the museum was selected by Arts Victoria and Deakin University as one of four in the state of Victoria to be showcased as a best practice model for the sector. As well as curating many exhibitions and publications for SAM, including Delinquent angel: John Perceval’s ceramic angels (2014) and Speaking in colour: the collection of Ziyin and Carrillo Gantner (2013), Paisley spearheaded the development of a $42 million new art museum development, established the SAM Foundation for this ends, with the local Council committing $10 million to continued progress in May this year.

Paisley has a Bachelor in Visual Arts, a Master Degree in Curatorship and in 2015 completed a Senior Executive MBA at the Melbourne Business school.

eX de Medici: Artist talk

eX de Medici is a practising artist who lives and works in Canberra. Her work is represented in state museum collections and private collections nationally and internationally.

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eX de Medici studied at the then Canberra School of Art Painting and Photo Media workshops in the early 1980s, served as board member on the artist collective Bitumen River Gallery, is a foundation member of the Canberra Contemporary Art Space, and is currently serving on the Board of the Canberra Glassworks. In the late 1980s she was awarded an Australia Council (Visual Arts Board) Overseas Development Grant to study tattooing in Los Angeles.

The artist has been selected for major Australian survey exhibitions including Contemporary Commonwealth (National Gallery of Victoria), Adelaide Biennial 1990, 1996, 2014 (Art Gallery of South Australia), 2006 Asia Pacific Triennial (Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art) and has been commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to paint the activist band Midnight Oil. She worked on the Australian Army’s Peacekeeping mission RAMSI in the Solomon Islands for the Australian War Memorial’s Artist in War Program. From 1997–2012, the artist worked with the CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection under the mentorship of international evolutionist and medallist Dr Marianne Horak.

Callum Morton: ‘Lost in space’

Callum Morton will use examples of his work to discuss his use of mimicry and juxtaposition to confound audience expectation. He will discuss how these varied encounters can open up critical ruptures in our perception of space and indeed our perception of the cultural, social and political context in which we operate.

Callum Morton was born in 1965 in Montreal, Canada. He completed a BFA at Victoria College, Prahran in 1988 and an MFA in Sculpture at RMIT in 1999. He is currently Professor of Fine Art at Monash Art Design and Architecture.

He has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1990. His selected solo exhibitions include shows at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Los Angeles (1999); Tommy Lund Gallery, Copenhagen (2000); Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne; The National Gallery of Victoria @ Federation Square (2003); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2003); GoMA, Brisbane (2010); and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2005).

Selected group shows include Face up at the Hamburger Bahnhoff in Berlin (2003); Architypes at the Charles H Scott Gallery in Vancouver; Public/Private: The Auckland Triennial, Auckland; The Indian Triennial in New Delhi (2004); The 2nd Istanbul pedestrians exhibition in Istanbul (2005); Everywhere, The Busan Biennale in South Korea; High tide: currents in contemporary Australian art at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland, and Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania (2006); Archeology of mind, Malmö Art Museum, Malmö, Sweden (2008); Kunsti Modernin, Taiteen Museo, Vaasa, Finland; Stardust at The Fundament Foundation in Tilburg, The Netherlands (2009); and 21st century: art in the first decade, GoMA, Queensland (2011).

In 2007 Morton was one of three artists to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale. In 2008 he completed the work Hotel on the Eastlink Freeway in

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Melbourne. The pavilion Grotto, which he designed for the Fundament Foundation in the Netherlands, was opened in 2009. In 2010 Morton completed a major outdoor commission for the new premises of MUMA in Melbourne and in 2011 his work was the subject of a 20-year survey exhibition at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.

In 2013 Morton designed the set for the MTC’s production of Other desert cities and he designed Endgame for their 2015 season. In 2014 he completed a collaboration with MCR and Oculus on Monument Park, a 2000 square-metre public park with integrated sculptures in Melbourne’s Docklands and he participated in the 19th Sydney Biennale, Imagine what you desire. He is currently working on a range of projects including Immigration Place, a collaborative project for a public memorial to immigration in Canberra; Come Away, a design for Ranters Theatre’s new work With me to the end of the world; a project called Reception for Anna Schwartz Gallery in 2016; and an outdoor work in Denmark for the European Capital of Culture in 2017.

Cameron Robbins: Artist talk

Cameron Robbins inquiries employ structural devices including kinetic wind or water-powered mechanical systems. Their aesthetic is the result of both careful engineering and resourcefulness. The outputs of these site-specific installations include wind drawings and sound compositions. These interpretations of the dynamics and scale of the physical world suggest the complexities of the unknown.

Cameron Robbins’s work makes tangible the underlying structures and rhythms of natural forces. He has produced site-specific installations and exhibitions in art centres, disused buildings and outdoor sites in Australia, Japan, Norway, China, Germany and the UK, both self-funded and commissioned.

Robbins is based in Melbourne and studied Fine Art (Sculpture) at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the Victorian College of the Arts to 1990; has lectured in art and design at RMIT since 2000; and was awarded Australia Council Visual Arts Fellowship in 2015, New Work Grants in 2011 and 2013, and various commissions.

TQI 2.1, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Plenary session 2: ACARAIntroduction: Rose Cahill is the Manager of Access Services at the National Gallery of Australia. Cahill joined the team six years ago and previously worked at a number of other national cultural institutions across Canberra. She has worked in the cultural sector for 16 years including national, regional, community and private art collections focusing on education and public programs. Over that period she has developed, delivered and evaluated many learning resources. She holds a BA of Art History and Curatorship from the Australian National University and has also worked in the school system focusing on the Visual Arts. She has a particular interest in observing and analysing the informal learning that occurs in our public galleries and museums and how this enhances a child’s analytical framework and through that their own sense of self and wellbeing.

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Phil Lambert: ‘Visual Arts and the Australian Curriculum’

In this presentation Lambert will provide a brief update on developments following the review of the Australian Curriculum in relation to the Visual Arts. He will also draw on curriculum reform efforts in other countries and locate the Visual Arts within these policy directions. Lambert will outline directions in relation to the Visual Arts and ACARA and make some observations regarding planning for the implementation of the Arts curriculum across Australia.

Dr Phil Lambert PSM, FACE, FACEL, has extensive experience in education as a principal, inspector, Executive Director, Assistant Director-General and Regional Director. He is currently General Manager, Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) where he has led the development of Australia’s first national curriculum. He has authored books and presented a number of papers and keynotes at national and international conferences. Lambert completed his doctorate at the University of Sydney where he is now Adjunct Professor. He is also Adjunct Professor at Nanjing Normal University, China and was Visiting Professor at Taiwan Southern University. Lambert is a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators and the Australian Council for Educational Leaders.

Lambert has received a number of honours and awards. In the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours he was awarded the Public Service Medal for his outstanding contribution to education. He was also acknowledged for his outstanding community work and leadership in a unanimous resolution in the Parliament of NSW. Lambert represented NSW at the World Educational Leadership Conference in Boston and at the World Expo in Shanghai. He was a member of the Australian team at the 2013 Global Education Leaders Program in New Delhi and London in 2014. In 2015 he provided the keynote at the International Textbook Symposium in Seoul and provided expert advice to the OECD at its Forum in Tokyo. He is currently leading the development of the national curriculum reforms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and supporting Brazil in the development of its national curriculum. He was the 2013 recipient of the prestigious Australian College of Educators award the Sir Harold Wyndham Medal.

Lambert has many interests and contributes to society in various ways. He was an industry judge for the 2013 TV Week Logie Awards and is a member of the National Rugby League Central Advisory Committee. He is Deputy Chair of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation and Deputy Chair of the Our Watch Board—the national foundation to prevent violence against women and their children. He is currently featured in an exhibition of 50 Positively Remarkable People from Sydney.

TQI 2.3, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

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Breakout session 1

Papers: Future directions of art educationJames O Fairfax Theatre | 3.30–5.30 pm

Chair: Rose Marin, Family Program Coordinator at the National Gallery of Australia, has a strong background working with children and families to deliver creative and engaging programs. She has received national recognition for her community arts projects, including two Imagine Awards from Museums and Galleries NSW. Prior to her arrival at the NGA she worked in regional galleries in New South Wales and Queensland, devising and delivering programs for early childhood, schools and special interest and seniors groups.

Marin is a practising artist and designer with skills in design, drawing, ceramics, printmaking, bookmaking and zines. She is the principal artist and owner of KickYourMaster Studio, which has delivered a diverse array of community arts projects for the past 15 years.

Marin is a qualified Visual Art teacher who has worked as an educator in schools, aged care facilities, disability services and through TAFE NSW and Southern Cross University.

Gemma Baldwin: ‘Future directions for the Visual Arts curriculum—where to from here?’

The future direction of art education in Australia is dependent on the quality and rigour afforded by a world-class curriculum. The Australian Curriculum for The Arts signals a return to the aesthetic orientation of knowledge in Visual Arts education, thus privileging students’ subjective experiences of art as the basis for learning.

A post-structural critique will be adopted to analyse how certain ideologies, theories and approaches to curriculum have been adopted by ACARA in framing the content of this curriculum. The impact of these idealist theoretical assumptions about learning in the Visual Arts on the coherence and appropriateness of the curriculum will be revealed.

Findings of this analysis show that the current curriculum under-represents a domain-specific focus on knowing in art that is supported by research in the field and how the omission of a variety of significant domains of practice present a distorted view of the subject.

Discussion will address how future iterations of the national curriculum could be enhanced through consideration of domains of practice and recent research into the conceptual development of students in the Visual Arts. These suggestions, sustained by philosophical realist structures, provide an avenue for building a robust and rigorous Visual Arts curriculum for the future.

Gemma Baldwin is a secondary Visual Arts teacher from Marist College Kogarah, New South Wales. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts/Bachelor of Arts from the UNSW, a Graduate Diploma in Education—Secondary from ACU, and is currently

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studying a Masters in Education (Visual Arts Education) at UNSW. Baldwin is currently a Research Assistant at the School of Education UNSW, a member of the Visual Arts and Design Educators Association of NSW (VADEA) and is interested in educational policy and curriculum in the area of Visual Arts.

Enza Doran and Kathrine Kyriacou: ‘VIVID SYDNEY: framing a cultural perspective for best practice in art education’

Kathrine Kyriacou and Enza Doran will share an online resource that offers specific learning and teaching strategies that will expand students’ understanding of the nature of contemporary art, art festivals and art events outside of the gallery. While their example unit of work is developed around Australia’s annual premier light, music and ideas festival ‘VIVID SYDNEY’, they will also highlight a range of national and international festivals and art events that students can engage with through a cultural lens. Through this perspective they will explore the ways that artefacts can serve multiple functions and represent an exchange of cultural/symbolic capital.

Their website offers programming ideas for teaching and learning in the Visual Arts, Photography, Digital Media and Design. Example units of work address how these resources inform teaching and learning in art-making practice and the development of art-critical and art-historical accounts. They also demonstrate how cultural perspectives can be applied as frameworks of value when engaging students in critical interpretations of contemporary art festivals and site specific installations from around the world. They will show examples of ways students have responded to these provocations in their own art making and understanding of contemporary art.

Enza Doran is the CaPA Coordinator at Clancy Catholic College, Sydney. She is an experienced Visual Arts teacher with particular interest in Visual Arts teaching and learning and technology. Doran is responsible for the ‘Mentoring and Leadership’ portfolio on the VADEA NSW Executive. She is currently completing her Masters of Education in Visual Arts at the University of NSW.

Kathrine Kyriacou is Co-President of VADEA NSW, Professional Development, and also a lecturer and tutor in Visual Arts education at the University of NSW and at the Australian Catholic University. Kyriacou has 16 years’ experience as a Visual Art and Visual Design teacher.

Rach Kirsten: ‘Wherefore art text? The function of language in the critical interpretation of artworks’

The philosophical tensions that exist between artworks and language form a conundrum that can often be evidenced in the micro context of the Visual Arts classroom. This paper explores the function of language in the critical interpretation of artworks. It begins with a brief overview of the theories of art that exist in the NSW Visual Arts curriculum, and explores how these relate to interpretive actions. It then references the work of art critic and historian Michael Baxandall to inform a

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practical case that explores the problematic of language as it functions in relation to two artworks. The paper concludes with provocations for how the chasm between artworks and language could be addressed in the Visual Arts classroom.

Rach Kirsten lectures in the School of Education UNSW. She is also the Creative Arts Advisor for Secondary Education in the NSW Department of Education, leading the implementation of Visual Arts curriculum in schools across NSW. Kirsten is an Executive Member of the Visual Arts and Design Educators Association NSW and is the Research Co-Manager for Art Education Australia. Kirsten’s knowledge of art curriculum informs curriculum renewal debates in both state and national contexts. Kirsten has co-authored numerous publications for the NSW Department of Education, and in partnership with organisations such as AGNSW and Kaldor Public Art Projects.

Alana Lewis: ‘Emotional literacy: a growing focus for Visual Arts education’

Teaching Visual Arts is more than just developing technical skills or ensuring students can analyse, describe or evaluate a work of art. It’s also about holistically broadening a student’s understanding of themselves, others and the world around them. We must facilitate risk taking, experimentation and guide them to positive self-expression. All of which means the teacher must become an instructor of emotional literacy.

The term ‘emotional literacy’ has been discussed in educational forums for many years. From Rudolf Steiner to Peter Sharp, both nationally and internationally educational leaders and institutions continue to research and develop programs based on expanding student understanding of emotional wellbeing, positive self-expression, resilience and empathy.

The general capabilities from the Australian Curriculum for The Arts specify the need to focus on areas relating to personal, social, intercultural and ethical understanding. All of which require the students to have well-developed emotional intelligence.

This paper will look at the connections that can be formed between the Australian curriculum for Visual Arts and state-based wellbeing frameworks, examining how imbedding teaching and learning strategies into Visual Art programs could be used to combat the ever-growing concern of student wellbeing and mental health issues.

Alana Lewis has worked as a Visual Arts teacher in secondary education in Sydney for the past 10 years. Working on the NPPPD National Partnership Principal Professional Development project, Lewis spent time researching and collaborating with primary and secondary educators to understand how art is being taught in schools from kindergarten to Year 12. Over the past four years she has independently researched the effects of art on student wellbeing, and has used art to assist students dealing with grief and behavioural issues.

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Alex White: ‘Experimentation in distance learning programs’

A range of challenges makes it difficult for any student to leave the classroom and encounter a cultural institution, and for students living in regional and remote areas these challenges are compounded to the point of near impossibility. The MCA has embarked upon a process of experimenting and rethinking what a contemporary art museum could do to connect to students remotely and what role an artist or an artwork might play.

Along the way we have experimented with the possibility of presenting a live artwork specifically designed for a two-way video connection with the intention of students seeing a challenging contemporary work firsthand rather than just seeing documentation of an artwork. The outcome is a unique artwork by young artist Agatha Gothe-Snape, performed by educators live in front of a green screen and PowerPoint presentation.

Experiences producing this to schools over the course of 2015 led to a desire to also create an asynchronous offering that students could connect with regardless of school timetabling. We are in the early stages of creating an online course that will be offered to students in the second half of 2016. Artist Lara Thom is collaborating to create the course as a participatory art project aimed at opening up the possibilities of live and relational art practices to students.

Alex White’s interest for intersections between creativity, technology and community has drawn him to roles in community broadcasting, community development and cultural sectors. He has a long history of organising and curating experimental music and art through projects including Tele Visions, Serial Space, Electrofringe, High Reflections, Lion Mountain Studio and Liquid Architecture. White currently works as the Digital Learning Producer for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. He is passionate about the possibilities for art and creativity to change lives both for audiences and creators. White also produces and performs sound, video and installations working with both customised software systems and hardware based modular synthesis systems.

TQI 2.1, 2.3, 2.6, 3.4, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Papers: Beyond the curriculumSmall Theatre | 3.30–5.30 pm

Chair: Frances Wild is a Program Coordinator in the Learning and Access Department at the National Gallery of Australia. Her main responsibilities include facilitating the voluntary guides course, coordinating the NGA’s art and medicine program and developing curriculum-related resources for both the permanent collection and special exhibitions.

Wild began her professional life as a nursing sister at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. She trained as a voluntary guide at the National Gallery of Australia during 1995 and then completed a BA in Art History and Curatorship at the Australian National University. She initially worked at the NGA as a casual educator before commencing a full-time role as program coordinator in 2009. Her research interests include the

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influence of Islam in Australian art and the intersection of art and medicine. She is planning to commence a Master’s program in one of these areas in 2016.

Lisa Allison and Shane Forrest: ‘Designing futures’

In 2001, a small, dedicated group of community members and teachers fought to save what was then Dulwich High School, as it was faced with closure via forced amalgamation under the NSW’s Labor government’s Building the Future program.

Many ideas to keep the school open were offered by this group. The request to become a specialist Visual Arts and Design high school was accepted and the school became Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design.

With no blueprint and only an initial modest government building grant, as the first and to date only Visual Arts and design high school in New South Wales, many innovative programs stretching beyond the curriculum have been developed in order to create a rich teaching and learning environment. This focus has been successful and is credited with doubling the student population over a five-year period.

For this conference, strategies to develop and sustain a specialist environment will be presented. We will demonstrate how forging useful links between the school, related art institutions and art practitioners provides enhanced opportunities for students to engage in Visual Arts and Design. Connecting with primary schools through specialist Visual Arts and Design programs is an additional key aspect of our focus.

Lisa Allison

Education: Bachelor of Art Education, University of NSW, College of Fine Arts, 1995; Graduate Certificate of Teaching Asia, Australian National University, 2012.

Teaching experience: 1996–98: Casual teaching/retraining to teach TAS (Industrial Arts); 1999–2001: TAS teacher, Casula High School; 2002: TAS/Visual Arts teacher, Maroubra High School; 2003–present: Visual Arts/Photography and Digital Media/Visual Design Teacher, Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design.

Professional associations/achievements: 2014–present: Visual Arts and Design Educators Association Executive Member (Currently Assistant Professional Development Officer); 2010: Participant in NSW DoE Teacher Education Visitation Program, Shanghai, China.

Shane Forrest

Education: Graduate Diploma in Education, Sydney College of Advanced Education, 1982; Master of Art, University of NSW, 1995.

Teaching experience: 1982–1991: Casual teaching NSW; 1984–85: Teaching English language, Date Academy of Foreign Languages, Mie Ken Japan; 1986–90: Art teacher and Illustrator, Correspondence School Sydney; 1991–present: Visual Arts/Japanese language teacher, Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design.

Exhibiting artist since 1978.

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Sam Bowker: ‘Engaging with Islamic art and design: what have the Ummayyads ever done for us?’

Since 2001, there has been substantial international growth in the field of Islamic art and design. This includes extensive new scholarship, curatorial re-assessments, multi-million dollar expansions of major museums and the establishment of new institutions. By contrast, few Australian art educators have the opportunity to teach Islamic art in universities, schools, museums or galleries. The result is that Australians are not benefiting from these important changes.

Trying to understand Islamic art is an ambitious undertaking. As art educators, we can contest the reductive representation of Islamic visual cultures. Engaging with Islamic art on principles that are secular (such as the imaginative intricacies of geometric design), sustainable (such as vernacular architecture for changing climates), and feminist (such as the contemporary art of the Middle East and North Africa), provides new and meaningful opportunities to engage with our cosmopolitan heritage as global citizens.

This presentation will introduce and critique the accessible online resources that characterise ‘third generation’ approaches to this beautiful, changing and complex field of international visual art. These are based on my experiences of researching, interpreting, developing, and teaching Islamic art and design for Charles Sturt University.

Dr Sam Bowker is a Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture for Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga, Australia. He is the curator of Khayamiya: Khedival to contemporary for the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, and developed Australia’s first online Islamic Art and Design subject for tertiary students. Prior to joining CSU he lectured in Art and Design Theory for the Australian National University. He also worked for over 10 years in Education, Learning and Access for the National Portrait Gallery, as well as the National Library of Australia and National Museum of Australia.

Janette Grenfell: ‘The affordances of blended learning in a higher education flipped art classroom’

This paper reports on the implementation of a flipped art classroom, designed to integrate studio based, online and virtual world learning environments to enhance student participatory experience in a higher education undergraduate art unit, Navigating the visual world.

Viewed through the four lenses of learning, pedagogy, community and environment, the project aimed to transition the focus from the educator to students and to support the collaborative lived experiences of all participants. Throughout the trimester, interactive web-based study designs, incorporating selected digital technologies, introduced students to course content and provided a focus for individual and collaborative studio-based projects.

A qualitative narrative methodology, A/r/tography, using both image and textual recording is used to explore and identify interwoven aspects of the artist/researcher/

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educator relationship in order to explore concepts of identity within inquiry-based art practice and the creative process. Selected student examples are used to demonstrate effective student engagement with experiential blended learning within the flipped classroom.

The findings of this study indicated that, in the researcher’s classroom, flipped teaching resulted in greater student engagement with all aspects of artistic experience, linking art theory and art practice in authentic individual and collaborative art projects.

Janette Grenfell is a Senior Lecturer in Art Education in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University, Geelong. Her research interests focus on the development of collaborative communities of art practice to encourage student participatory learning in the flipped classroom, incorporating located, online and virtual world environments.

Lynda Kelly: ‘Gaming as pedagogy’

An emerging area in contemporary pedagogy are digital games, which have an enormous impact on the lives of children. The use of games-based pedagogies via online and mobile internet-based technologies is seen as providing much potential for innovative, effective and accessible contemporary teaching and learning (Beavis, 2012).

The Australian National Maritime Museum in partnership with roar films (Tasmania), Screensound Australia and Screensound Tasmania have developed an educational game based on the 17th century convict experience. The voyage takes the user on a journey from London to Van Diemen’s Land where players, as the ship surgeon, are rewarded for the number of healthy convicts they deliver to the fledging British colony. The game is based on detailed historical data, using documented ship paths, convict and medical records and diaries (Beavis, et al, 2014).

Using The voyage as a case example, this paper will focus on learning in games-based environments and how museums can best exploit the principles underlying these. It will draw on research undertaken with a range of students and teachers looking at how games could improve learning experiences in both formal and informal museum settings, as well the classroom context.

Dr Lynda Kelly is Head of Learning at the Australian National Maritime Museum, responsible for all visitor programs, formal education programs, including digital learning, and audience research. Previous to this Kelly was Manager of Online, Editing and Audience Research at the Australian Museum, responsible for developing and evaluating the Museum’s digital content and programs. Kelly has been working in the research and evaluation fields since 1994 and in the museum industry since 1987, and has extensive knowledge of museum learning, new media and digital technologies. Kelly has published widely on audience research, learning and digital trends in the cultural sector.

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Anna Mundey: ‘Art is created for different reasons’

By using an inquiry-based pedagogy to teaching and learning at Gerringong Primary School, children are empowered to increase intellectual engagement and foster deeper understanding through the development of hands-on, minds-on and ‘research-based’ learning. The children become empowered, self-confident artists through this inquiry process. The ‘I can’t’ responses become ‘Can I?’

This is a 10-week program where all work is focused around the central idea: Art is created for different reasons. There are multiple stages in Inquiry-based learning.• Prior knowledge: How will we know what the children already know?

What are the possible ways of assessing student’s prior knowledge and skills? What evidence will we look for? How best will we learn? What are the learning experiences (both explicit whole-class and differentiated) to encourage the students to engage?

• Tuning in: What teaching and learning experiences will be explored in this stage? What questions arise for further inquiry?

• Finding out: Working through a series of MATRIX activities both teacher-directed and independent in order to build skills. These relate to the driving questions: What elements and techniques are used in art? What influences/ed the artists? How does art tell stories? Why do people view art in different ways?

• Sorting out: Choosing their own responses to the Inquiry learning by researching and responding to an artist of choice and producing a major artwork.

• Taking action: A celebration of learning takes place through an exhibition of artworks for the school community.

• Reflection.

Anna Mundey has been a primary classroom and art teacher for 30 years. She has developed and delivered Gifted and Talented programs throughout the Southern Illawarra and Kiama Community of Schools for much of that time. She is a passionate Inquiry teacher who saw an opportunity to develop deeper understanding and enthusiasm for visual art in the primary setting.

TQI 2.1, 3.4, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Papers: Research informing future practiceGandel Hall west | 3.30–5.30 pm

Chair: Adriane Boag is a Program Coordinator at the National Gallery of Australia with responsibility for developing access programs for youth and the community. Boag has a Visual Arts degree with Honours in Painting and Sculpture from Sydney College of the Arts. Boag has over 20 years’ teaching experience in tertiary and museum visual art education. A focus of her gallery work with youth is the annual National Summer Art Scholarship. Boag coordinates regular tours for a wide variety of specialised audiences including people with dementia and is the facilitator of the Art and Dementia program and the Art and Dementia outreach program. In 2010 a training workshop for regional arts and health professionals was developed for the Art and Alzheimer’s outreach program (now known as Art and Dementia).

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The training workshop has been delivered in 14 regional galleries in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

Graeme Colman: ‘Exchanging artefacts and exchanging knowledge’

This presentation examines the complexities and anxieties of critical study of Aboriginal and Indigenous art in the secondary classroom. The potential of NSW Visual Arts curriculum to support authentic and respectful investigations of Aboriginal art is explored through a differentiated case study on the art-making practice of Emily Kngwarreye. Structural explanations are often characterised as ‘formal analysis’ functioning as a universalising ‘tool’ of description. The notion of a ‘universal language’ of visual communication that can account for any artistic performance or phenomenon is in itself an operation of hegemonic control that extinguishes difference, when difference, and communication of culturally distinctive symbolic meaning, is our desired outcome. A more complex structural approach is proposed to generate explanations of the functional and intentional relationships between agencies of the art world. This ‘frames’ the kinds of questions we can ask, and the grounds that can support exchanges of meaning. These meanings may well be psychological, economic or historically and culturally specific, they may be ideologically complex, but the explanatory frame allows us to position these differences of focus as layers of symbolic meaning that recognise the distinctiveness and differences of both artists and audiences.

Graeme Colman is the Head of Art and Design at St Vincent’s College, Sydney. He also teaches curriculum studies at UNSWAD and Extension Visual Arts Method at UNSW School of Education.

Andrew Jones: ‘The tragedy of boys’ art education: why don’t boys in our schools embrace Visual Arts as a strategy for success?’

This paper will discuss aspects of data collected from a small group of Visual Arts teachers in Canberra in 2013 to illustrate themes in the literature relating to boys engagement in the study of Visual Arts to explore the notion that boys who are rejecting Visual Arts are also resistant to a subject we commonly believe provides many benefits for students in school.

The portrayal of boys’ education continues to present an image of ‘moral panic’, due to the lack of engagement and underachievement of boys in schools (Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998). Since the mid 1990s the ‘problem’ of boys has been voiced in the popular media, linking anti-social behaviour, working class values, underachievement and disengagement in secondary education (Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998) (Mills, Martino & Lingard, 2007) (Imms W, 2011) (Jackson, 2010). Most research relating to boys and the arts comes under the umbrella of both visual and performing arts; there is relatively little research that focuses on boys’ engagement with the Visual Arts (Imms, 2011). Recent debate on the topic of boys’ disengagement in the classroom has examined the impact of classroom pedagogy as both a cause of problematic behaviour as well as providing strategies for its improvement (Ainley, Riodan,

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as cited in Deed, 2008). This paper explores our knowledge of boys’ engagement in visual art and advocates its use as a strategy for engagement in our schools. Studying visual art is a vehicle for boys to find success and increased self-esteem, which reflects the view that when working with ‘at risk’ boys an art-rich pedagogy has practical applications to successfully engage boys (Imms W, 2011). It would be very simplistic for researchers to reduce this issue to a narrow version of boys’ masculinity and underachievement (Jackson, 2010) when, in fact, we should promote curriculum and pedagogy that is not stereotypically ‘boy friendly’ but rather characterised by greater freedom to express masculinity in different ways (Cobbett & Younger, 2012).

Andrew Jones graduated from Staffordshire University in 1991, studying Fine Art Sculpture. After migrating to Australia in 1995 he studied at Charles Sturt University gaining a Post Graduate Secondary Teaching Diploma. Jones is currently finishing a Masters of Art Education Research through Charles Sturt University. Jones has recently completed convening ‘Breaking the Stereotype’, Australia’s first Boy’s Art Education Symposium held in Canberra in July, 2014, as well as speaking at INSEA, Melbourne 2014, Oxford, 2014 and Arts in Society Conference, London 2015, on the subject of Boys Art Education. Jones also tutors at the Australian Catholic University on the secondary-visual art Graduate Diploma of Education Course.

Luise Guest: ‘Exploding the canon: using contemporary Chinese art to engage secondary students in the practice of art criticism and art history’

This paper is based on the presenter’s research in China over a period of five years, her book Half the sky: conversations with contemporary women artists in China (Piper Press, Sydney, due January 2016), and her practice as an art educator in NSW. Presenting her own method of differentiated teaching and learning in the secondary classroom, she will show how specific contemporary practices engage students in authentic investigation and art writing, focused on cutting-edge Chinese artists and their works. Used as a ‘hook’ to involve students in close observation, speculation and wonder, works by artists such as Xu Bing, Cai Guo-Qiang, Xu Zhen, Shi Jindian, Liu Zhuoquan, Gao Rong and Cui Xiuwen invite students to write critically, creatively and analytically with increasing sophistication over time. Experiences of works in the gallery context (at the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney) as well as via a range of virtual and literary experiences ensure that student writing is powerful and original.

Luise Guest has been an art educator in NSW schools since 1980. Most recently Visual Arts Coordinator at Loreto Kirribilli, until September 2015, she has provided advice on assessment and curriculum development to the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW, and was the Supervisor of HSC Visual Arts marking from 2005–09. Since her first study tour to China as the recipient of the 2010 NSW Premier’s Kingold Chinese Creative Arts Scholarship she has published widely on Chinese contemporary art and its connections with curriculum. She is now the Director of Education and Research for the White Rabbit Gallery, the largest collection of contemporary Chinese art internationally at this point, and

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is responsible for making Judith Neilson’s collection accessible for scholarship and to educators.

Karen Maras: ‘Toward conceptual autonomy: domain-specific research on students’ artistic development’

Typically, accounts of critical development in art assume that the theories students rely on when interpreting artworks are exclusively hardwired to formalism as a basis for aesthetic understanding. I argue that describing development in formalist terms reveals much about students’ aesthetic competence, but over-determines what art educators understand of the conceptual bases students intuitively consult when asked to explain artworks. In this presentation I outline research I have undertaken to examine the domain-specific constraints on students developing critical theories of art. Using examples of students’ critical reasoning drawn from a study in which they act as curators of an exhibition, I show how intentionality, language and artworks as real things play fundamental roles in students developing theories of meaning in art in primary and secondary school age groups. I explore how students’ naïve realist beliefs about art are represented in talk about artworks and underscore developmental advance that consolidates in real theories of art at about 12 years of age. I propose that future directions in art education need to declare well-defined developmental constraints on learning, an orientation that would appropriately inform how high quality pedagogical practice aligns with students’ developing conceptual autonomy in art.

Dr Karen Maras is a Senior Lecturer in Visual Arts Education at UNSW. She coordinates pre-service teacher education programs in Visual Arts, Design and Media Arts Education and a Master of Education (Visual Arts) specialisation. Her research focuses on conceptual development in art and is informed by a realist theoretical framework. Drawing on her background of secondary school art teaching, curriculum development in NSW and research, Maras’s focus is on research-informed curriculum development and advocacy in art education at state and national levels. She was previously VADEA NSW Co-President (Professional Development) and has recently been elected President of Art Education Australia.

Julie Wren: ‘Young children and how they make meaning’

Children are extraordinary meaning makers. To determine how they make meaning, a research project was undertaken with kindergarteners where a range of paintings and sculptures, borrowed from professional artists, were displayed in their classroom for one week at a time. Children’s responses were observed by teachers and the researcher at school, and their parents at home.

Findings show that the longer the children had with the artworks the more they were challenged by them. They engaged with the artworks’ symbolism in ways that went beyond words. Meaning was socially mediated through playful, imaginative activities and incorporated complex creative behaviours that synthesised their emotion, perception and thoughts. Their expressions integrated their visual,

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embodied and spatial modes that led to ways of learning not evident in other aspects of schooling. The children showed sophistication and expert know-how in transmediating between modes and extracting the affordances of each mode to metaphorically express meaning.

The children explored complex and challenging ideas with a sense of agency. They extended the use of materials, leading to the invention of new artistic techniques, and tackled artistic elements and principles by making their own artworks.

The significance of this study is in how engagement with the actual artworks transforms children’s knowledge and understanding about themselves and their world. This may inform future pedagogic practices.

Julie Wren is a lecturer in Early Childhood Visual Art Education at Edith Cowan University and a PhD student at the University of Melbourne.

TQI 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Out of the boxCollection Study Room | 3.30–4.30 pm

Participants are invited to a behind-the-scenes experience of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art collection. Franchesca Cubillo, Senior Curator and Kelli Cole, Assistant Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, will explore the conference theme practice + innovation + learning through the work of contemporary Aboriginal artists such as Abe Muriata, Tony Albert and Lorraine Connelly-Northey. Facilitated by Rose Montebello, Collection Study Room Coordinator.

Franchesca Cubillo is the Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia and has worked in the museum and art gallery sector for the last 25 years. She was employed in several state and national institutions throughout Australia, including the South Australia Museum, the National Museum of Australia, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and more recently the National Gallery of Australia. She is a Churchill Fellow, has a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in Anthropology and is a PhD candidate with the Australian National University.

Cubillo has written extensively, presented lectures and keynote addresses on subjects such as the repatriation of Australian Indigenous ancestral remains, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture, and Australian Indigenous museology and curatorship.

Originating from Darwin, she is a member of the Yanuwa, Larrakia, Bardi, and Wardaman nations of the Top End region of Australia and has been the Chair of the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair since 2010.

Kelli Cole is a Warumunga and Luritja woman from central Australia. Cole is Assistant Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia. She has worked on major projects at the NGA since 2007, including the National Indigenous Art Triennial in 2007 and 2012, the development of the NGA’s

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11 Indigenous art galleries in 2010 and the delivery of six Wesfarmers Arts Indigenous Arts Leadership programs.

She has written on various aspects of Indigenous art for NGA publications, including the magazine Artonview, and for the 2014 special Indigenous issue of Artlink. Cole curated the children’s exhibition Alive and spirited at the NGA in 2014. She was awarded the Australia Council Visual Arts, Curatorial Fellowship in 2014 and took 12 months leave from the NGA to work at the Canberra Glassworks where she curated two exhibitions including Jenni Kemarre Martiniello’s sole exhibition, ReInventing the weave and The distant warrior, a special ANZAC Centenary exhibition. Cole is currently employed as a consultant curator at the National Museum of Australia, curating the Unsettled: stories within exhibition, showcasing five of our leading Indigenous Australian artists that are responding to the Museum’s major exhibition Encounters.

Facilitator: Rose Montebello is Coordinator of the Collection Study Room (CSR) at the National Gallery of Australia and is a practising artist living and working in the Canberra region. Montebello studied at the Canberra School of Art completing an honours degree in Printmedia and Drawing in 2000. Montebello began working in the Registration Department at the NGA in 2002 where she worked as an art packer and as an art handler specialising in works on paper. Since 2007 Montebello has been Coordinator of the CSR and a member of the NGA Learning and Access team.

In her art practice Montebello examines the narrative potential of found imagery to examine human experience, temporality and transcendence. Her work employs the techniques of reproduction, dissection and reconstruction of images gathered from vintage publications to create intricate collages and 3D tableau.

Montebello has exhibited her work both locally and nationally. Her work was recently acquired by the National Gallery of Australia and included in the NGA Contemporary exhibition Streetwise: contemporary print culture.

TQI 2.1, 2.4, 3.5, 6.3, 7.4

Behind the scenes: Tyler Graphics at workOrde Poynton Gallery | 3.30–4.30 pm

The Behind the scenes: Tyler Graphics at work exhibition engages our enduring fascination with how fine art prints are made. The exhibition investigates the processes of printmaking, as well as illuminating the collaborative relationship between artist and printmaker. The National Gallery of Australia’s Kenneth Tyler Print Collection is the most comprehensive collection of postwar American art outside the United States. Consisting of over 7000 works of art and extensive holdings of documentary film, sound and photographic material, the collection provides insight into the workings of the most innovative print workshop of the 20th century.

Behind the scenes: Tyler Graphics at work presents a selection of artworks alongside photographs and a series of specially produced short films to provide audiences

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with a framework for understanding the technical aspects of fine art printmaking. The session will include an overview of the exhibition, followed by a discussion of the unique resources available to teachers and educators through the Kenneth Tyler Printmaking Collection website. Introduced by Gwen Horsfield, Learning Programs Coordinator.

Emilie Owens is the Assistant Curator of Behind the scenes: Tyler Graphics at work and was the Assistant Curator of International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books at the National Gallery of Australia from 2007–2015. She worked with the NGA’s Kenneth Tyler Printmaking Collection from 2010–2015. Owens is an Honours graduate of the Australian National University’s Art History and Curatorship program.

Gwen Horsfield is a Learning Programs Coordinator at the National Gallery of Australia. She’s worked in a few different parts of the NGA, including curatorial, registration, education and online content development. She studied Art History at the ANU, where she also worked as a teaching and research assistant. She loves talking to people about art and feels lucky to be getting paid for it.

TQI 2.1, 3.4, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Thursday 21 January9.00 am – 5.30 pm

Keynote session 2Introduction: Katie Russell is Head of Learning and Access at the National Gallery of Australia. Her role involves leading a multidisciplinary team to design, develop and deliver a diverse suite of learning programs to support both virtual and physical Gallery visits by people of all ages. Her previous roles include Learning Coordinator at the National Portrait Gallery and Program Coordinator of Art After Hours at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Russell’s professional interest lies in the potential for Australian public art galleries to increase their accessibility and appeal to a broader cross-section of the community through interpretive programming. She holds a MA in Learning and Visitor Studies in Museums and Galleries from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and a BA (Hons) in Art History and Curatorship from the Australian National University.

Howard Gardner: ‘Truth, beauty and goodness reframed’

Beyond the achievement of basic literacies and preparation for a vocation, the major goal of education worldwide has been an appreciation and understanding of what is true, beautiful, and good. While the arts may touch upon aspects of truth and morality, education in the arts has focused most appropriately on an appreciation of beauty and on the creation of beautiful objects and works. But what is an appropriate educational stance at a ‘postmodern’ time when cannons of beauty are changing radically and many scholars (as well as laypersons) challenge the very concept of beauty? Drawing on his recent book Truth, beauty and goodness reframed

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Howard Gardner describes the properties of beautiful experiences and suggests how they can be cultivated over the course of schooling and beyond.

Prof Howard Gardner is the John H and Elisabeth A Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds positions as Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero. Among numerous honours, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. He has received honorary degrees from 30 colleges and universities, including institutions in Bulgaria, Chile, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, South Korea and Spain. He has twice been selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. Gardner received the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences in 2011, and in 2014 he was awarded with the Brock International Prize in Education. The author of 29 books translated into 32 languages, and several hundred articles, Gardner is best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be adequately assessed by standard psychometric instruments.

For many years, Gardner was co-director of Project Zero and is now Chair of its Steering Committee. He also directs the Good Project, a set of research endeavours about work, citizenship, collaboration and digital life. More recently, with long time Project Zero colleagues Lynn Barendsen and Wendy Fischman, he has conducted reflection sessions designed to enhance the understanding and incidence of good work among young people. With Carrie James and other colleagues at Project Zero, he is also investigating ethical dimensions entailed in the use of the new digital media. Among current research undertakings are: a study of effective collaboration among non-profit institutions in education; a study of conceptions of quality, nationally and internationally, in the contemporary era; and an investigation of liberal arts and sciences in the 21st century. His latest co-authored book, The app generation: how today’s youth navigate identity, intimacy, and imagination in the digital world, was published in October 2013. In 2014, Gardner’s Festschrift, entitled Mind, work, and life, was published in honour of his 70th birthday and is available for free electronically.

Professor Gardner will appear at the conference via video link.

TQI 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.3, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Keynote session 3Introduction: Katie Russell (bio on page 25)

Ellen Winner: ‘How art works: studies in intuitive aesthetics’

Art education around the world has focused primarily on art making. But getting students also to think about philosophical questions about art can intrigue them and sharpen their interest in art. Drawing on an ongoing program of research on intuitive aesthetics, Ellen Winner will discuss what we know and what we can find out about children’s and adults’ thinking about the kinds of questions that philosophers of art

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and aesthetics have debated. First, what is art and how objective are our aesthetic judgments? Second, what do we bring to art? For example, what kinds of ‘irrelevant’ factors do and do not influence our aesthetic judgments (eg knowledge of an artist’s moral character, belief about whether the work was an original or a copy, knowledge of the artist’s process of working)? And finally, what do we take from art? For example, how does art affect emotion, and can art shape us morally?

Prof Ellen Winner is Professor and Chair of Psychology at Boston College, and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. She directs the Arts and Mind Lab, which focuses on cognition in the arts in typical and gifted children. She is the author of over 100 articles and four books: Invented worlds: the psychology of the arts (Harvard University Press, 1982); The point of words: children’s understanding of metaphor and irony (Harvard University Press, 1988); Gifted children: myths and realities (BasicBooks, 1997, translated into six languages and winner of the Alpha Sigma Nu National Jesuit Book Award in Science); and co-author of Studio thinking: the real benefits of Visual Arts education and Studio thinking2: the real benefits of Visual Arts education (Teachers College Press, 2007 & 2013). She served as President of APA’s Division 10, Psychology and the Arts, in 1995–96, and in 2000 received the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Research by a Senior Scholar in Psychology and the Arts from Division 10. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Division 10) and of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics.

Professor Winner will appear at the conference via video link.

TQI 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.3, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Breakout session 2

Papers: The digital influenceJames O Fairfax Theatre | 1.15–3.00 pm

Chair: Mirah Lambert has extensive experience in developing, delivering and managing learning programs in museums and galleries. Prior to joining the NGA as Learning Programs Manager in 2013, Lambert was the manager of Digital Education and Outreach for Museum Victoria, and this included leading the development of online resources supporting the Australian Curriculum, Learning Lab and the family app Time Lens, a treasure hunt around Melbourne Museum. Early in her career Lambert worked at the Goulburn and Campbelltown regional galleries in education and public programs in which her passion for Visual Arts education flourished following the completion of a Bachelor of Art Education and later a Master of Arts Administration from College of Fine Arts UNSW.

Stephen Armitstead: ‘Electronic, digital, interactive and in the art room: the creative and contemporary use of technology as it applies to an arts learning context’

At a time where many of the standard tools used by contemporary artists for their work include video, sound, digital photography and software, Stephen Armitstead

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explores how art education programs can embed these mediums alongside traditional studio approaches, both at the developmental and final stages of practical works. Armitstead describes how the arts are a unique context within which to teach computer coding in that artworks based on programming can explore abstract themes like satire, beauty and the absurd.

Armitstead outlines the benefits of incorporating a broad range of media, including electronic, digital, virtual, digital sculptural and digital interactive to an arts learning context. He also shows that through teaching easily accessible electronics systems like Arduino, simple creative arts technology teaching programs can be imagined and developed in school environments at modest cost and training.

Armitstead believes the art teacher has a vital role guiding their students aesthetically and conceptually while they use electronic, digital or interactive art in their classroom and that they do not need to be an expert in technology to facilitate core techniques and procedures. This way the art classroom and curriculum can be a unique place to meet the needs of the 21st century learner.

Stephen Armitstead has 12 years’ experience as a secondary school art teacher and 25 years’ practice as an interdisciplinary artist skilled in video, photography, sound and digital art. He studied time-based art at COFA UNSW, has experience and qualifications in Secondary Teaching, Gifted and Talented Education and VETiS. Currently Head of The Arts Learning Area at Warnbro Community High School, he has secured a two-year partnership between PICA (Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts) and WCHS as the 2015–16 Spark_Lab school. This collaboration seeks to unite both institutions in a series of projects fostering excellence in education and skills for innovation.

Richard Harding and Marian Crawford: ‘Presence and speed: print and the art school’

In a digital world, the image is no longer still. It may appear in many guises simultaneously, and then disappear without a trace. Our histories and our archives have sprung to life, easily searchable as quickly sourced data. In this abundance and multiplicity, an equivalence with the practices of fine art printmaking is clear. An almost unlimited amount of impressions can be taken from the print matrix, and its link to news media becomes clear. When the serial nature of the print engages with this endless supply of visual digital data, the historical resonance of printed matter and print imaging practices are enriched. While maintaining the traditional aura of the print, contemporary print practices mediated by digital technologies have become ubiquitous in the art school. Printed matter is everywhere, and the pedagogical implications of this are rich. This paper argues that the new relationships that are demanded by this proliferation and strength of the print and print practices has reinforced and broadened the teaching and learning environment for students and Visual Arts educators in the contemporary art school. Case studies will be explored to demonstrate the intriguing amalgam that the print represents in this pedagogically rich environment.

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Dr Richard Harding is a visual artist and Senior Lecturer, School of Art RMIT University, Melbourne. Harding has been exhibiting for the past 20 years in Australia and internationally, with solo and group exhibitions. He has a PhD from RMIT University, Melbourne

Marian Crawford is a visual artist with a 20-year exhibiting history that includes the 2015 Guangzhou Print Biennial, China Academy of Art, China, and lecturer at Monash Art Design and Architecture, Melbourne. She has taught in art schools for 20 years and has a Master of Arts RMIT University, Melbourne.

Cathy Hunt: ‘Messy mobile making: mixing paint and pixels for learning’

The personal mobile devices we see in the hands of our students are powerful tools for creation. Mistakes can be erased, experiments are easily undertaken and exploration is exciting. Where are the best places to integrate technology for learning in courses that leverage the power of tactile, hands-on art-making practices? Let’s talk about screen time, collaboration and breaking down the separation between digital tools and ‘everything else’ for our creative, connected kids. This session will draw on ideas and present insights and examples from classrooms around the world as a showcase to inspire educators in diverse classroom settings.

Cathy Hunt is an educational consultant, presenter, author and experienced Visual Art teacher using a 1:1 classroom for diverse students in Years 6–12 at St Hilda’s School on the Gold Coast. With a passion for using art as a vehicle for engaging with creative processes, improving visual literacy and divergent thinking skills, Hunt is keen to share her knowledge and experience in transformational learning in the art room.

Through her bestselling books on the iBookstore, and dynamic keynotes, presentations and workshops internationally for schools, conferences, galleries and beyond, Hunt models and promotes learning that leverages ‘hands-on making’ with 21st-century skills and tools. Hunt is now a well-known advocate for ed-tech tools in the arts and a thought-leader in an international learning network with a strong presence in social media. She is also a member of the Gold Coast City Art Gallery Educational Reference Committee, a DILA Award recipient and finalist for 21st Century Teacher of the Year.

Alexander Robins: ‘Digital self-representation: art projects in WA remote Aboriginal community schools’

Many Aboriginal communities in the remote Western Australian Goldfields were only established as recently as the late 1980s. An integral part of the long-term viability and eventual success of these remote Aboriginal communities is the establishment of the school. I had the privilege of teaching in many of these pioneer schools, educating the children of some of Australia’s most famous indigenous artists.

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A surprisingly common youth expression evident in the ‘Generation-Z’ students I taught was an avoidance of traditional art forms such as dot painting. Traditionally, Aboriginal culture dictates small children be ‘viewed as ngurrpa vessels not only empty of knowledge but initially lacking any significant capacity to learn’. Students were reluctant to attempt the depiction of their community tjukurrpa (stories), either because they didn’t know the full story properly or in case they made mistakes.

As digital arts technology became more accessible, students embraced this new form of artistic expression and wholeheartedly started to capture their own lives, community events and parts of the tjukurrpa they knew (or were allowed to know).

This case study showcases an evolution of school-based digital arts projects 2000–2014:• Digital photographic ‘community wall’ at Tuntjunjarra Remote Community

School• Ngaanyatjarra school calendar produced by various campuses of the

Ngaanyatjarra Lands School• 6500 photos and AV installations produced for Warburton Arts’s first and second

Land and body exhibition tours of China (2010–11 and 2013–14) from the Wanarn Campus of the Ngaanyatjarra Lands School

• Wanarn School Common Room and Music Studio i-Macs: Photo Booth archive.

Alexander Robins hails from North London and has over 13 years’ experience working in remote and urban Aboriginal schools. Arriving in Western Australia in 2000 (on a 457 Immigration visa), he started teaching in Tjuntjunjarra, Warakurna and Kiwirrkurra Remote Community Schools. Innovative use of the Arts as the medium for Literacy, Numeracy and IT education became his speciality in these unique educational settings. Robins was awarded WA Department of Training grants providing arts opportunities for community members in Jameson, Blackstone, Wingellina and Warburton Arts Centres. He was School Principal of Wanarn Remote Aboriginal Community School for seven years. He led students at this site to produce the Youth Element (digital photography and A/V installations) for both of the Warburton Arts Project’s Land and body exhibition tours of China. Robins took Wanarn students, staff and elders to China to participate in the exhibitions’ inclusion in Imagine Australia: Year of Australian Culture in China. A member of the installation team, he helped bring the exhibition around numerous locations in China. More than 650 000 people visited the exhibition, which won the Inaugural Australian Arts in Asia Award (Indigenous). Robins is currently the Deputy Principal at Moorditj Noongar Community College in Perth.

TQI 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.6, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4

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ShowcasesSmall Theatre | 1.15–3.00 pm

Chair: Gwen Horsfield (bio on page 25)

Margaret Beadle: ‘Future directions in art education’

Focuses on the Visual Arts Life Skills Unit, where the education program ‘provides a range of ways in which students may engage in learning activities and students should participate at a level appropriate to their abilities and interests’. We know students learn more by doing and should be supplied with more equipment and creative ideas, so that they can actively use their minds and hands. Making that art project something truly relevant gives the student pride to do well. A pinch pot that serves as a bonsai pot; a coil or slab pot that serves a vase; a colour wheel that serves as a snowflake; they are useful items.

Some art galleries provide specialised workshops, which is commendable and students with disabilities do benefit from this. Students can view any number of works of art, in a book, on a laptop, on computer or on the smartboard, but it is not until it is seen firsthand that it has the most impact. I have exposed students to art using these methods but it was when we went to the Art Gallery of NSW, Penrith Lewers Gallery and the Casula Powerhouse Art Gallery that the students had the greatest experience, expressing their delight at school and at home.

Margaret Beadle is an art teacher, in a support unit, with students of varying disabilities at Cecil Hills High School. I provide a voice for the needs of my students and have enriched their lives by helping to raise funds for a Variety bus, which also gained us a liberty swing. Students have experienced fun and entertainment at the circus, Sydney Opera House, various art galleries, the Museum of Fire, thanks to the Variety bus and my assistance. I am always looking for innovative ways of stimulating the minds of my students and encouraging them to do their best. It is very rewarding work.

Rose Cahill and Krysia Kitch: ‘A sense of ease’

This presentation will outline for the audience the aims of the program, how it was delivered, the key stakeholders, and the outcomes for the students involved—with the intention that teachers and museum educators across Australia could innovate and achieve in their own practice. Krysia and Rose will speak about how the NGA and National Portrait Gallery approached the project and the overall commitment from the educators involved in the delivery and coordination. Krysia and Rose will talk about how the project evolved, focusing on the students’ developing relationships with each other and the educators involved in delivery, as well as their increased visual literacy and ability to observe, analyse and make art in response to works of art. Krysia and Rose will speak about the positive feedback from the teacher involved at Wanniassa High School—Trevor Preston. They will discuss the support, commitment and feedback from the YWCA. John and Kaz (NPG

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Educators) will briefly showcase some examples of cognitive and emotional learning observed throughout the program using images of the art the students produced. The program used a number of apps on iPads that enhanced digital learning with a range of other art-making materials used as well. The key topics of exploration in the program were around identity. At first the students were nervous and uncomfortable reporting low school attendance. By the end of the program they were discussing works of art with a sense of ease around the topic and themselves.

Rose Cahill (bio on page 10).

Krysia Kitch is Manager, Learning Programs, National Portrait Gallery and has been involved in gallery education for 15 years. Kitch has a degree in Art History and Curatorship (Hons) from the Australian National University and a Masters of Liberal Arts from the same institution. Kitch joined the NPG in 2008 and has collaborated with all sections of the NGA in developing and delivering programs for the education sector and the general public.

Eloise Cole: ‘The artist, the student, the teacher and their sculptures’

This digital showcase features sculptures made by Year 3, 4 and 5 students and illustrates how partnerships with artists can authentically engage children and the school community in the creative process. Collaboration with artists and schools can facilitate quality learning in visual art and this will be illustrated through the journey of a two-year partnership with a sculpture artist in a suburban Canberra school. The artist and teacher spent time planning and preparing before the program was delivered and then engaged children from Years 3 to 5 to create sculptures from found and recycled materials. This has resulted in two major sculpture projects, a school-based art exhibition, a visit to the artist’s studio and entries into an art competition. At this school, a creative culture has emerged where art making is valued and time and space is dedicated to the arts. This has resulted in students and parents regularly showing and talking about their own artistic pursuits.

Eloise Cole has been teaching for 20 years across the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. She has sought opportunities to build capacity to teach visual art from Foundation to Year 6 and is currently working as a visual and performing arts teacher in a primary school in Canberra. Cole has developed and curated several school art exhibitions, initiated school community projects and established links with local artists to collaborate with students to undertake art projects. She has worked with 100 Year 5 and 6 students to contribute to the Kids’ Guernica Project to produce a mural (3.5 by 7.8 metres) and this work has been exhibited and published on the Internet. Cole has recently developed and delivered an accredited professional development course for primary school teachers titled ‘More Than Drawing—Authentic Engagement with Visual Art’.

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John Holloway: ‘Connected: the National Portrait Gallery in your classroom’

The National Portrait Gallery has been working on something new to bring the gallery into your classroom. In a brief showcase of our Livestream Learning project we will show you how we designed a compelling digital experience around the teaching and practice of Visual Arts. See how students can benefit from practising and developing important visual thinking strategies, and see how it models to teachers a way of navigating the wealth of art and culture flowing out of museums and into digital spaces. Capturing many of the key benefits of on-site learning programs, these virtual experiences would be an invaluable resource for any class who can’t get to a gallery as often as they’d like.

John Holloway is the Digital Learning Coordinator at the National Portrait Gallery of Australia. As an educator with a passion for getting students to creatively engage with the arts and humanities, his interest is in leveraging technology to develop compelling learning experiences for students. In 2015 he spearheaded a successful new virtual excursion project for the gallery, bringing its rich collection to more Australians than ever before.

Nicholas Smith: ‘Arts education at The Smithsonian American Art Museum’

Arts education is at the core of the Smithsonian Institution’s mission—it’s even in the URL. All 19 museums, nine research centres and the zoo have extensive education programs incorporated into their operations. The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) has a wide range of education and public programs that include incorporating arts education into the school curriculum for children of all ages, arts education taught via satellite to every US military base around the world, scholarships, internships and fellowships and engaging with special interest groups to engage a wider audience. Specific fundraising for arts education is key to making this possible. Development staff work to raise funds for programs through private donors, government bodies and non-government organisations. By adapting these education models, arts education can be taught as part of the Australian school curriculum, and development and advancement staff can be trained in fundraising for arts education.

Nicholas Smith is a recent graduate of The University of Queensland, and has spent three months as an intern at The Smithsonian American Art Museum researching future practice in arts education. He starts his Honours thesis this year at The University of Queensland looking at the influence African American artists have had on Indigenous Australian artists, in particular, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Gordon Bennett. He has volunteered at The UQ Art Museum since 2012 in the areas of Registration and Collection Management, Curatorial, Public Programs, and Advancement, and is enrolled in Harvard University’s Museum Studies program, beginning in January 2017.

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Kate Tyrwhitt: ‘The place of iPads and 3D printing in the Primary Visual Arts classroom’

The implementation of iPads to every student at St Michael College Primary School has transformed the delivery and ability to share and explore design and innovation in the Visual Arts classroom. Kate Tyrwhitt has developed online classrooms using Showbie to create a platform to introduce themes, support inquiry-based learning and provide tools to show, comment, display and assess student work. Students demonstrate their learning in various ways such as uploading images of their work, making comments about the process of making, responding to artworks, and creating e-books that detail how to make artworks and the reason why they create. The teacher is able to give feedback within the app, assess artworks using a virtual gradebook and annotate uploaded work samples. These samples can be saved and achieved for future reference and evidence of student learning.

Kate Tyrwhitt BFine Arts (Monash University), Post-Grad Diploma Fine Arts (Monash University) Grad Dip Primary Ed (Charles Darwin University), MEd (Flinders University). Tyrwhitt has a background in Fine Arts majoring in sculpture and drawing and still practises her art while teaching. Her teaching experience is in primary education and she has spent the last six years teaching art and learning support in the Catholic sector in a boys’ school. Tyrwhitt has a keen interest in ICT and has been implementing them in the classroom for 10 years. She presents in ACEC and CEGSA conferences about using web 2 tools and capturing creativity with diverse learners.

Kay Whitney: ‘Stop.Motion.Nolan’

In 2013, the Australian Government funded the Stop.Motion.Nolan project at the Canberra Museum and Gallery in support of Canberra’s Centenary and the Nolan Collection. In Stop.Motion.Nolan, students use stop motion animation techniques, iPad and app technology to access and engage with the paintings and stories in the Nolan Collection at CMAG. Stop motion animation is a fun and creative means of combining technology and the Visual Arts in a way that is engaging and meaningful for students. Once the basic skills and techniques of stop motion animation are understood, students can then apply this knowledge to bring any subject area to life. The Stop.Motion.Nolan program is available as an online resource or as an outreach education kit for schools in the Canberra region. Teachers from the Canberra region may also book a Start.Stop.Motion session at CMAG with the Nolan Education Officer. These Professional Development sessions are designed to unpack the main features of the program for teachers and assist them to confidently implement the program in their own classrooms.

Kay Whitney majored in printmaking and photography at art school and has extensive experience as a secondary school teacher of visual art, design, drama, ceramics and music in NSW, South Australia and the ACT. She has also worked as an educator in various museums and galleries across Canberra, including the National Gallery of Australia and the Australian War Memorial. In 2008, she commenced her

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role as the Nolan Education Officer at the Canberra Museum and Gallery, where she designs, develops and delivers learning programs around the Nolan Collection for students preschool to Year 6, art activities for children and families and printmaking workshops for adults.

TQI 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.6, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Panel session: PartnershipsLiangis Theatre, National Portrait Gallery | 1.15–3.00 pm

This panel session presents a range of examples of successful partnership models between students, teachers, artists, architects, city councils, art galleries, curators, community groups and organisations. Discussions will centre on how partnerships can enhance student learning and expand this learning across curriculum areas, including The Arts, English, Science, Humanities and Mathematics.

Chair: Karen Vickery joined the National Portrait Gallery in late 2011, where she is Director of Learning and Visitor Experience. Vickery has had a long career in the performing arts in which she has worked as an actor for companies such as Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir and Q Theatre and as a translator and dramaturg of Russian play texts. Vickery lectured at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) from 1996 and was Head of Performance Practices there for five years, specialising in history of performance along with the history of visual art, architecture, literature and music before moving to Canberra.

Since joining the National Portrait Gallery, Vickery has focused on broadening audience participation and, in particular, extending early childhood and family programs creating opportunities for informal and cross-generational learning. Vickery has a strong interest in the relationship between cross-platform performance and visual art along with a passion for communicating about the arts to as wide a public as possible through arts education.

Vickery has a Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language, a Bachelor of Arts with Honours and First Place from the University of Melbourne, a Bachelor of Dramatic Art in Acting from NIDA, and an MA in Theatre and Film Studies from the University of New South Wales.

Catherine Read: ‘Excelling in the arts? Stretching pedagogy and making meaningful cross-curriculum connections with professional artists’

Australian artist Lisa Roet partnered with teacher Jane Karnowski from Preshil, The Margaret Lyttle Memorial School, and Year 5 and 6 students. They investigated people’s relationship to the environment and to primates, our closest living relatives, with a focus on the impacts of deforestation and the rapid evolution of the human race. This provoked debate around sustainability, with project opportunities including an engineering and robotics workshop, group think tanks in which Roet shared her experiences of working with scientists and environmentalists in Southeast Asia, 3D printing workshops of students’ primate designs, drama workshops to

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experiment with body language and instinct, drawing and writing workshops, mask making and participation in a video work.

Video artist David Rosetzky partnered with visual art teacher Catherine Read from the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School to provoke students to generate questions and discussions on environmental, cultural and social sustainability. He then guided students and teachers through the following phases: Year 7 music students and music teacher composed vocal responses; Year 10 dance students and dance teachers took these vocal responses and themes to choreograph a piece performed with the vocal responses. Documentation of the creative processes was curated by visual arts classes and exhibited at Monash University Museum of Art.

Catherine Read completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Drawing) at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2006. She is currently in the final stages of completing her Master of Art Curatorship through Melbourne University. Read’s teaching experience is extensive, having worked in government, private and museum education. Currently, Read teaches in the Specialist Visual Art program at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School.

With a passion for curating multidisciplinary artist project collaborations, she has been successful in initiating and managing a number of projects in the school environment, most recently working with contemporary Australian artist David Rosetzky. With the success of these projects, she has spoken at a number of conferences about producing successful collaborative partnerships, speaking on behalf of Creative Victoria and also in collaboration with MUMA (Monash University Museum of Art) Education.

For continued professional development, Read is a regular VCAA Exam assessor for both the Art and Studio Arts study designs. In 2015, she spent time working with the online education company Edrolo, developing lessons for Year 12 students studying VCE Studio Arts. Last year, Read featured as a writer for the KINGS ARI emerging arts writers’ program and has also spent time curating a number of project shows in and around Melbourne.

Kathryn Hendy-Ekers: ‘Curriculum planning and development in Victoria’

This presentation will follow on from the Creative Victoria presentation by Catherine Read. Creative Victoria Artists in Schools programs will be linked to the cross-curriculum planning and units of work developed by schools involved in the program. Kathryn Hendy-Ekers, the Curriculum Manager, Visual Arts for the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority will discuss how Creative Victoria programs can build whole school curriculum development and achieve learning outcomes in the Arts and include other learning areas such as English, Science, Humanities and Mathematics and build capabilities in personal and social development, ethical and intercultural understanding and creative and critical thinking. Examples will be drawn from Creative Victoria’s Artists in Schools and Extended Residency programs.

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Kathryn Hendy-Ekers is an experienced art teacher across all Visual Arts areas from early childhood through to Year 12 arts education. She has 25 years’ experience in the classroom and has written curriculum and assessment materials for areas of the curriculum. Hendy-Ekers is currently the Curriculum Manager, Visual Arts for the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority.

Kathryn Hendy-Ekers and Helen Attrill: ‘Making connections and new directions: a partnership between a regional gallery and the Victorian Curriculum’

Regional art galleries are invaluable sites in providing learning experiences for students and teachers as well as resources that support the curriculum. Bendigo Art Gallery is a leader in regional Victoria in providing learning programs for school students and professional learning for teachers. This presentation by Helen Attrill, Education Officer at Bendigo Art Gallery and Kathryn Hendy-Ekers from the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment authority will review the learning programs at the gallery and the connections with the recently released Victorian Curriculum: The Arts, Foundation to Year 10. The presentation will identify how curriculum content and assessment is enacted in the gallery through rich learning experiences and educational programs.

Kathryn Hendy-Ekers (bio on page 37)

Helen Attrill works at Bendigo Art Gallery as an Education Officer and shares this role with teaching VCE Studio Arts at Bendigo Senior Secondary College. She has both taught and contributed to the Studio Arts Study Design for over 20 years. As an Education Officer she is renowned for running Professional Development programs for teachers and a range of activities for students of all ages, in particular senior students. She has produced a number of curriculum resources which are used by students and teachers state wide.

Karen King: Creating communities: socially engaged contemporary Visual Arts programs in Western Sydney

This presentation reports on the value and relevance of innovative project-based teaching and learning programs that move beyond the curriculum and actively connect Visual Arts students with local art institutions, council and community initiatives in Western Sydney. The presenter will explore how establishing educational partnerships between local schools with artists, architects and curators at Penrith Regional Gallery and The Lewers Bequest and Penrith City Council has enhanced student learning, enabling them to critically engage with local issues and initiatives for art making and art writing. Projects that will be examined include the site-specific River Voices project based on the C3 West and Campement Urbain’s Penrith of the Future/The Future of Penrith urban design project, student online documentation of the City of plenty installation project with artist Sarah Goffman and teaching and learning programs based on the regional gallery’s collection and site. The presentation will also consider how NSW Visual Arts syllabus frameworks promote student learning based in authentic art world practices. Recent research by

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the presenter from the 2013 NSW Premier’s University of NSW Teaching Scholarship also informs this presentation.

Karen King is a Visual Arts teacher and the Leader of Learning, Creative Arts at Caroline Chisholm College, Glenmore Park. King has been involved in local, state and national Visual Arts Education working on syllabus development, examinations and professional development and advocacy for the Visual Arts. As a Western Sydney educator, King has worked on collaborative projects with other local teachers, Penrith City Council and Penrith Regional Gallery to engage Visual Arts students in their issues and events in their area. In 2013, King was the recipient of the 2013 NSW Premier’s University of NSW Teaching Scholarship.

TQI 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Breakout session 3

Panel session: Mentoring and professional developmentJames O Fairfax Theatre | 3.30–4.30 pm

An important aspect of the teaching profession is to be able to share experiences, foster those entering the profession and, for many, maintain their own professional practice. This panel will focus on opportunities for teachers specialising in the Visual Arts who encourage their own development and skills and enhance their teaching practice or provide alternative avenues in which their skills, or the skills of their students, can flourish.

Chair: Rose Cahill (bio on page 10)

Paul Isbel: ‘Validating the Visual Arts in the creative economy’

A dominant feature of the Creative Australia National Cultural Policy was the strength of the creative economy. A giant of that economy is digital gaming, a highly visual medium. As the creative economy expands, much of it driven by digital content and design, the sector is poised to build capacity. A skills audit has identified sector deficits in IT, management and business skills. Independent artists are becoming microbusinesses, having to divide their time between their practice and promotion of their work. Around 44 000 people in Australia declared their occupation as ‘artist’ in the last census, but 531 000 people work servicing and supporting the creative sector. If young Australians have ambitions to work with like-minded creative people, they have 13 times the opportunity working in support of practising artists than they do of making a living from their art. Only 17 per cent of professional artists work full-time on their practice. Of the 83 per cent who rely on a second income, most prefer that income to be derived from arts-related employment. Of all the employment related to the Visual Arts, and by far the most jobs are for graphic designers, which is morphing into gaming professionals as well. There are many more stats to support the confidence that young Australians should have about a creative career. The fact that there are so many studies and updates regularly occurring in the sector is one more sign that the creative economy now figures in national growth calculations.

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Paul Isbel was a teacher for 15 years, mostly in secondary but also in primary and tertiary. He worked in online media as a writer, editor and publisher for 10 years. He has combined those two careers in education and media into his present role as the national training coordinator for ArtsReady, the first national training program for the creative sector. In his free time, Isbel is a writer, songwriter and game developer. From his experience developing a board game, Isbel worked daily with a designer and became acutely appreciative of the importance of visuals to position a product.

Karolina Novak and Daniel Green: ‘Professional development: secondary art education and artistic practice’

Many secondary art teachers train first as artists before entering the field of education and many juggle their own creative pursuits alongside their teaching careers. As trained and practising creative practitioners, artist-teachers bring a wealth of real-world knowledge to their professional lives. However they often exist in a flux between two states of being, and many end up sacrificing one of their double-lives for the other.

As per the old (and untrue) adage ‘those that can’t do, teach’, the relationship between artists and teachers has long been fraught, as choosing to teach secondary art is often perceived as a compromise on artistic principles. This can be difficult to reconcile for dual practitioners who simultaneously possess not only two distinct professional identities but also the weight of expectations of both. In other contexts, the art educator is framed within the literature as an expert practitioner at the intersection of the disciplines of art and education. However, experience has shown that where intersection lies so too does complexity. This paper seeks to explore that complexity through the lens of the artistic practices of practising secondary teachers.

Karolina Novak is an artist and educator. She has worked in both school and other settings, including as Education and Outreach Coordinator at UTS Art and as a Program Designer and Facilitator at MacICT. She currently teaches at a Sydney high school.

Daniel Green is an artist and educator. He works in educational and cultural institutions, including producing the Sydney Mini Maker Faire for the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. He currently works as STEAM Lab Coordinator at MLC School.

Ms Novak and Mr Green on Art Education is an ongoing cross-disciplinary project that explores the personal and professional duality of being both an artist and educator.

Wendy Ramsay: ‘Collaborative exchange: peer mentoring for Visual Arts teachers in regional areas’

Implementing professional learning to support and empower Visual Arts teachers in regional locations by an examination of the VADEA NSW Regional Inspire and

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Indulge professional development model, as a framework for collaborative exchange and peer mentoring. The model is predicated on collaborative negotiation between the VADEA regional support officer, a Visual Arts teacher as a regional contact and gallery education. Programs reflect the specific expertise and professional practice of each regional location and provide an opportunity for all participants to exchange ideas and resources. The model incorporates both school and gallery sites (National Gallery of Australia, Bundanon Trust, Murray Art Museum Albury and Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery in 2015) in a consecutive program format.

Presentations address the dissemination of knowledge, understanding and skills in art making and the critical and historical study of Visual Arts, innovative teaching and learning programs, including Years 7–12 units of work, contemporary practice and case studies. The 2014 pilot program was implemented in 2015 providing regional Visual Arts teachers with opportunities to initiate ongoing professional exchange and to identify and facilitate future initiatives beyond the Regional Inspire and Indulge program, through the establishment of VADEA regional hubs and access to professional learning grants.

Wendy Ramsay is the Regional Support Officer for VADEA, NSW, Teaching Methods lecturer and tertiary advisor at the University of Technology, Sydney HSC presenter for ARTEXPRESS teacher professional development and Education Consultant for dLux Media Arts. Ramsay previously held the position of NSW Visual Arts Advisor for the DET.

TQI 2.1, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Panel session: ANU School of Art: A focusSmall Theatre | 3.30–4.30 pm

Chair: Mirah Lambert (bio on page 27)

Rohan Nicol, Ashley Eriksmoen and Richard Whiteley: ‘Change makers: innovation in craft and design pedagogies’

Studio-based craft and design education programs face significant challenges in responding to the conditions in which they exist. Many studio craft programs have been slow to adopt and sometimes resistant to change, many have amalgamated or closed. ANU School of Art is one of the few institutions that have successfully maintained all five original craft and design disciplines. We have achieved this in part through embracing new pedagogies, and by incorporating collaborative, cross-disciplinary approaches with problem-based learning.

We continue to assert that the studio craft and design programs are a location of vitally significant knowledge. In this presentation we demonstrate how new programs have responded to accommodate changed institutional requirements and more diverse student needs within a rapidly changing world. Richard Whiteley, Ashley Eriksmoen and Rohan Nicol will chart continuing innovations at program and course level through which we have responded to challenges familiar to our sector. Whiteley will outline how these solutions were cooperatively negotiated within

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the school. Eriksmoen will outline a cross-disciplinary elective, Workshop Atelier, designed to provide a ‘hothouse’ learning platform, and Nicol will provide a case study of a new program, that extends studio learning by creating collaborative, cross-disciplinary and problem-based learning.

Dr Rohan Nicol is Head of Gold and Silversmithing and convener of the Design Arts Degree program at the Australian National University School of Art. As an active craftsman, academic and curator his interests are focused through the lens of jewellery, silversmithing and design. He holds qualifications from the Australian National University and Charles Stuart University, where he was awarded a PhD. His awards include the prestigious Bombay Sapphire design award and funding to conduct research from the Australia Council and Australian Universities. His work is held in collections including the Powerhouse Museum and the National Gallery of Australia.

Ashley Eriksmoen is the Head of Furniture at the ANU School of Art. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards including Australia Council funding CAPO Fuji-Xerox Sustainable Art Award, and the Norwegian Marshall Fund Grant. Eriksmoen studied fine woodworking at the College of the Redwoods and earned an MFA in Furniture Design at Rhode Island School of Design. Her work addresses the gap between the living world and the built world, suggesting animate and sentient qualities in constructed furnituresque objects. Eriksmoen’s work also addresses issues of sustainability, natural resources, consumerism and waste as they relate to furniture production.

Associate Professor Richard Whiteley earned an MFA from the University of Illinois. He is Head of the Glass Workshop and Convenor of Craft and Design ANU School of Art. Whiteley was a board member for the Visual Art Board of the Australia Council from 2009–11 and now serves as a regular peer. His works are held in major museums and private collections worldwide, including the NGA, and the Corning Museum of Glass. He has received many research grants to develop creative works, perform technical research and he has completed research on a major glass-recycling project with a Sydney company, Refire Glass.

TQI 2.1, 2.6, 3.1, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Plenary session 3Introduction: Jessica Ausserlechner is the NGA Contemporary Coordinator at the National Gallery of Australia. Her background is in performing arts, dancing for the West Australian Ballet Company, Melbourne Dance Theatre and internationally for five years. In 2014, Ausserlechner held the position of Nishi Gallery coordinator for the NewActon precinct, while completing further study. Ausserlechner now holds a Bachelor degree in the Arts, specialising in Dance, from the West Australian Academy of Performing Art, Edith Cowan University, and a post-graduate degree in Art History and Curatorship from the Australian National University.

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Curator’s perspective with Deborah Hart

Deborah Hart, Senior Curator, Australian Painting and Sculpture post-1920 discusses the exhibition The Last Temptation: the art of Ken + Julia Yonetani on display at NGA Contemporary.

Dr Deborah Hart is Senior Curator of Australian Paintings and Sculptures post-1920 at the National Gallery of Australia, a position she has held since 2000. Hart is a widely published art historian and has written several acclaimed monographs. She has curated numerous major exhibitions at the NGA, including Fred Williams: infinite horizons, Joy Hester and friends, Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective, Imants Tillers: one world many visions, Andy and Oz: parallel visions (shown at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, 2007), Richard Larter: a retrospective and Arthur Boyd: agony and ecstasy. She is curator of The Last Temptation: the art of Ken + Julia Yonetani, which is currently on display at NGA Contemporary.

TQI 2.1, 7.4, 6.3

Conference dinnerGandel Hall | 7.00 pm

Master of ceremonies: Matthew Frawley has been a part of the Canberra arts landscape for over thirty years through his involvement in the visual and performing arts and cultural sector. He has worked at Canberra Museum and Gallery, Erindale Theatre, Canberra Glassworks and National Portrait Gallery in a diverse range of areas including marketing, membership, visitor services and management. Over the years Frawley has directed many musical productions and organised a wide range of exhibitions and cultural events. He is loud, irreverent and loves nothing more than standing up in front of a crowd with a microphone so is currently making a name for himself as an MC at a number of local charity and arts happenings.

Friday 22 January9.30 am – 5.00 pm

Keynote session 4Introduction: Michelle Fracaro has worked as an educator in a range of cultural institutions for 15 years. In her current role as Program Coordinator at the National Gallery of Australia her responsibilities include developing a broad range of learning and community programs that engage with the NGA’s permanent collection and temporary exhibitions. She has extensive experience developing online and onsite resources that respond to the Australian Curriculum and is interested in the opportunities that digital technologies can create in enriching content and increasing access for visitors. In 2012 Fracaro coordinated the National Visual Art Education Conference and has also convened the 2014 and 2016 conferences. She holds a Bachelor of Education from the University of Canberra, a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Curatorship from the ANU and a Masters of Liberal Arts in Museums and Collections from the ANU.

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Rika Burnham: ‘Acts of interpretation’

At the heart of every meaningful encounter with a work of art is a moment of truth. Dialogue opens up, a mutual curiosity emerges. The museum visitor is no longer spectator but participant, the artwork is no longer still and inert, but active and alive. Through dialogical gallery teaching and collective acts of interpretation, we seek the transformative rather than the prescriptive and the formulaic. We seek the intense encounter with a single object rather than a casual glance at a hundred artworks. And finally, we seek experience and risk rather than the descriptive and the mundane.

Rika Burnham is Head of Education at The Frick Collection in New York City. Previously she was a museum educator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she worked from 1985 to 2008. She was recognised by the National Art Education Association for sustained achievement in teaching in 2001; appointed a Getty Museum Scholar in 2002; and received the James D Burke Prize for achievement in the Arts in 2003, the first museum educator so honored. She received the Charles Robertson Memorial Award from the School Art League in 2005, and in 2006 was an Attingham Trust Scholar in The Royal Collection Studies Program in London. She has been a guest lecturer and conducted workshops at art museums nationwide and internationally since 1989, including recent engagements at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Rockoxhuis, Antwerp, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antigua, Lisbon, and the Thyssen Bornemisza, Madrid. She has been an adjunct professor of Art and Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a visiting museum educator for the Summer Institute of Contemporary Art (TICA) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and she is the ongoing project director of the Teaching Institute for Museum Educators (TIME), also at the SAIC. Her publications include several essays on museum education and a catalogue essay in Pierre Bonnard: the late still lifes and interiors (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009). Teaching in the art museum: interpretation as experience (Getty, 2011), which she co-authored with Elliott Kai-Kee, won a PROSE Award for best title in education of 2011 from the Association of American Publishers. Burnham holds a BA in Fine Arts from Harvard College and was awarded the degree of Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2014.

TQI 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.3, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Plenary session 4: Contemporary Australian artists continuedIntroduction: Denise Ferris is an educator and art practitioner, who is the Head of the School of Art at the Australian National University. Denise has lectured and supervised in Photography at ANU since 1987, worked as Honours and Graduate Convenor, as the Associate Dean (Education) for the College of Arts and Social Sciences, and is an elected member of the ANU Academic Board. Ferris is currently on the Executive of ACUADS, Australian Council of Universities of Art and Design, as well as the newly established DDCA, Australian Council of Deans and Directors of Creative Arts. She still loves teaching and in 2011 was awarded an ACUADS Distinguished Teaching Award.

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Her art practice and research is generated from intimate experience and also examines broader social politics. Celestial spaces, her most recent solo exhibition, draws attention to Kiandra where Chinese miners lived and worked in the 1860s. This current research on the politics of absence is being developed as an ARC multi-disciplinary project. Her photographs are in Australian public collections as well as international collections including the District Six Museum, Cape Town and Nara City, Japan.

Julie Rrap: Artist talk

Julie Rrap’s involvement with body art and performance in the mid 1970s in Australia continued to influence her practice as it expanded into photography, painting, sculpture and video in an ongoing project concerned with representations of the body. Between 1986 and 1994 Rrap lived and worked in France and Belgium where she exhibited widely. This opportunity to broaden her horizons grounded her work in a more international context and she exhibited in Belgium, Switzerland, France, Holland, Germany and Italy.

Julie Rrap returned to Australia in 1994. In 1995, she held a survey of her work at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and in 2007, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney held a major retrospective of Rrap’s work titled Body double, curated by Victoria Lynn.

In 1989 Rrap was included in the Australian show, which toured to the Frankfurter Kunstverein and other venues in Germany and Edge to edge to major museums in Japan. Other significant group exhibitions include Photography is dead! Long live photography, (Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 1995); Systems end: contemporary art in Australia (toured to Japan and Korea, 1996); Body (Art Gallery of NSW, 1998); Fieldwork: Australian art 1968–2002 (National Gallery of Victoria, 2002); Turbulence: 3rd Auckland Triennial (Auckland, 2008); Biennales of Sydney, 1986, 1988, 1992 and more recently, Revolutions: forms that turn, Biennale of Sydney, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, 2008.

Rrap has been short-listed for numerous major prizes including the Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award, 2002, the National Sculpture Prize in 2003 at the National Gallery of Australia, and the prestigious Clemenger Contemporary Art Award at the National Gallery of Victoria, 2009. She won the Hermann’s Art Award for her photograph Overstepping in 2001, the Redlands Westpac Art Prize in 2008 for a mixed-media work Stasis symbol and her video work, 360° self-portrait won the University of Queensland National Artists’ Self-portrait Prize, 2009. This work was selected by Victoria Lynn for inclusion in The trickster at the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Korea, 2010, and was also selected for the 14th Jakarta Biennale 2011 and in 2014, The New Media Gallery, Vancouver, Canada.

In 2015, Rrap exhibited a new body of work, Remaking the world as the 2015 recipient of the Vizard Foundation Contemporary Artist Project at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne.

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Monograph publications include Julie Rrap: body double, Victoria Lynn’s book to coincide with the MCA exhibition (co-published by Piper Press and the MCA) and Julie Rrap, also a Piper Press publication, 1998.

Rrap has also been the beneficiary of numerous grants from the VACF, Australia Council including a two-year Creative Fellowship in 2002. Rrap’s work is held in every major public collection as well as many corporate and private collections both in Australia and overseas. She is represented by Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery, Sydney, and Arc One Gallery, Melbourne.

Jan Nelson: Artist talk

She is best known for her paintings, photographs and sculptures, as well as performance-based video works that explore the complex terrain between vulnerability and defiance. She describes her work as a ‘lasagne compost’, layers of meaning all decomposing, to make up the whole. As with most of Nelson’s work the meaning is contained within the process. The handmade meets industrial precision, whether it is a hyper real exact replica of a photograph, an abstracted minimal rendering of stripes on a wall or the incessant casting of 3 D objects. All are managed with a set of instructions, followed to perform a kind of perfection. In a way she asks herself to meet the exacting conditions of that which already exists, problematising the very nature of representation.

Jan Nelson was born in 1955 in Melbourne, Australia. After living in Canada and Europe for four years in the mid 1970s, Nelson completed a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1983.

Nelson has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas since 1984. Her work has been featured in major surveys here in Australia including Perspecta 86 and 95, Art Gallery of NSW, 2004, National Gallery of Victoria, The new contemporary collection exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW, 2006 and Optimism, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, 2008, also several group exhibitions in Europe and the United States and in 2003 in the Sao Paulo Bienal. In 2004 she was awarded the John McCaughey Memorial prize for painting and in 2009 she was the recipient of the Arthur Guy memorial painting prize in Bendigo. She has also been the recipient of several Australia Council Grants. In 2011 she was included in the publication Who’s who of Australian women. More recently she has had exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Portrait Gallery, The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and The Ian Potter Museum of Australian Art. Her work is included in national and overseas collections including Distrito Cu4tro Gallery, the National Gallery of Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and the state galleries of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, and in corporate and private collections throughout the country. Nelson has taught at several universities and is presently completing a Doctorate in Philosophy (Fine Art) at Deakin University. She is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne.

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Justine Varga: ‘Surrendering to the photograph’

To expose a negative is to ruin it. From the moment it is exposed to light, that negative is spent. Before this moment, when it is still but a sliver of infinite darkness, a negative is all potential. The photograph is most pure in this moment, crisp in its latency—untouched and unmarked, it is nothing but what it might yet become. It is with the rupture of the negative’s darkness that I recover a ground zero. In allowing the first mark—when I surrender to the making of it—there can be no wrong. It is the source of freedom from which to make a photograph, to allow a photograph to make itself. Emptiness is everything; it’s full, full of its own potential.

My paper will explore the materiality of the photographic process as embodied in my own work as a photographic artist. Slowly but surely absorbing the gentlest ambient light, my photography knowingly deletes what came before. A shadowing follows and leaves its traces on film, sometimes over a seven-month exposure to the elements and the play of chance. I abandon myself to this play, to photography’s own inexorable processes of becoming. The registration that remains cannot be wiped but nor can it be recovered completely. Orchestrated into visibility during printing, it hovers someplace between being there and nothingness. It is the colour embedded within—a dull glow just beyond the surface. An echo of an image, it resonates to envelope the body in sight and sound. In my work there is no cropping or subterfuge—nothing is secret or hidden in its display. What you see is what is. Despite appearances to the contrary, nothing could be more realist than this.

Justine Varga creates photographic works that investigate an intimate exchange between film surface, the body and camera. Employing analogue techniques, she reinstates the act of looking through photographic architectures to assimilate present and past experience. In doing so, Varga transforms the emptiness and ephemera of her workspaces into documents for the process of remembering.

Varga has achieved impressive recognition since graduating with Honours from the National Art School in 2007. She has been a finalist in numerous awards, including the 2015 NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging), the Bowness Photography Prize and the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize. In 2014 she was the recipient of the Australia Council for the Arts London Studio Residency and was awarded the MCA Primavera Veolia Acquisitive Prize. In 2013, she was Joint Winner of the Josephine Ulrick and Win Shubert Photography Award and in 2012, she was selected for Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Her work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Art Gallery of NSW.

TQI 2.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Plenary session 5: The art of looking and the ‘new NGA’Chair: Katie Russell (bio on page 25)

Shaune Lakin and Jaklyn Babington: The art of looking

Shaune Lakin, Senior Curator, Photography, and Jaklyn Babington, Senior Curator, Contemporary Arts Practice—Global, will unpack their respective collecting

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areas and provide tools for how to look at photography and contemporary art with students.

Dr Shaune Lakin is Senior Curator, Photography at the National Gallery of Australia. Lakin was previously gallery director at the Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne. MGA is Australia’s only public gallery dedicated to collecting Australian photography and has over a 24-year period built a nationally significant collection. Before joining MGA in late 2008, Lakin was Senior Curator of Photography at the Australian War Memorial, where he wrote the first major history of Australian conflict photography and was curator of numerous exhibitions. Previously, he was curator of International Art at NGA and a lecturer in art history and theory at the University of Melbourne, where he completed his PhD in photographic history in 2002. Lakin has written widely on the history of Australian and international photography and curated many exhibitions.

Jaklyn Babington is Senior Curator, Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Australia, a new department with a focus on global contemporary art practice. Previously, Babington was curator of International Prints and Drawings. She has curated several NGA and nationally touring exhibitions including Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix (2013), Space invaders: Australian street stencils, posters, paste-ups, zines and stickers (2010–12); Robert Rauschenberg: 1967–1978 (2007–08) and Against the grain: the woodcuts of Helen Frankenthaler (2005). Babington was a contributing curator to the following NGA publications and exhibitions: Workshop (2015), James Turrell: a retrospective (2015), William Kentridge: drawn from Africa (2013), Soft sculpture (2009), Colin McCahon (2007–08), James Rosenquist: welcome to the water planet (2006) and Off the page: contemporary artists’ books (2003). In 2008 Babington was awarded the Harold Wright and Sarah and William Holmes scholarship to the British Museum, London.

Katie Russell, Rose Cahill and Mirah Lambert: ‘New NGA’

Following a generous gift from Tim Fairfax AC, the NGA has a range of new learning and access initiatives rolling out in 2016. Katie Russell, Head of Learning and Access, will give an overview of the renewed philosophy and approach, and Rose Cahill Manager, Access Services, and Mirah Lambert, Manager, Learning Programs, will outline the range of new online and onsite programs and resources for teachers as part of the ‘new NGA’.

Katie Russell (bio on page 25)

Rose Cahill (bio on page 10)

Mirah Lambert (bio on page 27)

TQI 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.6, 7.4, 6.3

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Workshops

Thursday 21 January

The art of linocutting with Brian Robinson

Megalo Print Studio + Gallery | 1.30–5.30 pm

In this workshop, artist Brian Robinson will present an informative and hands-on printmaking activity at Megalo Print Studio + Gallery. Within this four-hour workshop participants are invited to explore and develop basic linocutting skills. This introductory lesson will cover the processes of linocutting and printing using a small press and hand burnishing techniques, as well as experimentation with existing prints.

Brian Robinson is a multi-skilled contemporary artist whose practice includes printmaking, painting, sculpture, installation and design. Heavily influenced by his childhood in the Torres Strait, Robinson’s appreciation for the culture of his people, mythology in particular, inform his practice. His works embody the customs and traditions of the Torres Strait Islander people while also referencing other narratives from cultures globally. His commitment to experimentation using methods such as carving cross the boundaries between reality and fantasy.

TQI 2.1, 2.4, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Concurrent workshop program 1 3.00–5.00 pm

Remote drawing workshop with Cameron Robbins | Gandel Hall centre

In this workshop, artist Cameron Robbins will present a dynamic group drawing activity, aimed at all ages from primary school to adult. Participants are invited to take part in a large-scale action-drawing project and drawing skills of every level will be catered for as various devices are used to extend the hand and help create pure lines and trajectories.

In a series of timed exercises, groups of participants are asked to move around long sheets of paper attached to the floor to produce large drawings in ink pen. The pens are extended on long wires, which distances the self-conscious feeling of drawing.

The lines produced are energy trajectories, building up over time to form a skein or orbits, like plants moving or protons in a particle accelerator. Water will be used to create a variety of weather-like effects. The resulting drawings will be quite lovely and free feeling, with a wide variety of marks and a lot of condensed energy. Participants are asked to walk around for five-minute periods and be quite active in order to make the works.

Cameron Robbins (bio on page 10)

TQI 2.1, 2.3, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

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Photography and film for digital stories with Rick Connors | Gandel Hall west

This workshop will explore how to take better photos with a personal device using exposure and composition. Beginning with a story, participants will first head outside and take photos and shoot film.

Using devices and computers participants will then use apps and online tools to edit and create their own digital stories with images, film, music and text. Once the stories have been created participants will then look at tools to share the digital stories with the rest of the world.

Participants are required to bring their own mobile device that can take photos (DSLR or point and shoot camera would be the best option).

Rick Connors was a professional photographer/film-maker for 23 years. He is now teaching Art and Design at Wanganui Park Secondary College in Shepparton. Connors specialises in developing and building effective differentiated curriculum in an eLearning environment for middle year students. He is an Apple Distinguished Educator and global ambassador.

TQI 2.1, 2.6, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

The creative iPad classroom with Cathy Hunt | Collection Study Room

This super-session will provide you with the confidence, tools and tactics you need to enhance creativity, visual literacy and divergent thinking using mobile devices for learning in your creative classroom. Full of apps, lesson ideas and concrete examples from real classrooms, participants will mix paint and pixels to explore abstraction, use reflected images to create kaleidoscopes, drawing digital tessellations, talking sculptures and time-lapse towers.

Cathy Hunt is an educational consultant, presenter, author and experienced Visual Art teacher. Through her bestselling books, and dynamic presentations and workshops across the globe for schools and prominent galleries including the NGA, Hunt models and promotes learning that leverages ‘hands-on making’ with 21st-century skills and tools. Hunt is a well-known advocate for ed-tech in the Arts as the founder of ipadartroom.com. She is also an Apple Distinguished Educator with an international learning network and strong presence in social media, and is currently on the way to a PhD at Queensland University of Technology.

TQI 2.1, 2.6, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Friday 22 January

Traditional Victorian coiled basketry with Lee Darroch

Small Theatre | 2.30–5.00 pm

Learn traditional Aboriginal coiled basketry originally from the south-east of Australia using bundles of fibre wrapped and stitched together in a growing coil. Discover the grasses used to make coiled basketry and view different baskets made

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using this method. Participants will be taught to make a small basket. Lomandra longifolia grass, knives and wooden pegs supplied.

Lee Darroch is a Yorta Yorta, Mutti Mutti and Boon Wurrung woman, who has lived on Raymond Island in the Gippsland lakes with her partner and two children for the past 27 years. She is an artist and cultural worker. Her artwork is inspired by the need to continue cultural, spiritual and artistic practices. Darroch has run her own business Gurranyin Arts for over 20 years. She feels guided in her artwork by the Old People who have gone before us and by her Elders today. Darroch hopes to leave behind a rich legacy for her children and other children to follow, so that the Dreaming will continue in an unbroken line.

TQI 2.1, 2.4, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Australian National University workshopsANU School of Art | 2.45–5.00 pm (allow 15 minutes travel time from NGA)

Primary printmaking with Alison Alder

Participants will learn two printmaking techniques: monotype, which produces strong designs from hand-worked hard surfaces, and pochoir, which produces strong bold colours from stencils. They will also interact with the international print exhibition Interchange and reflect on their practice-led research and the work of their colleagues.

Alison Alder is the Head of Workshop, Printmedia and Drawing at the ANU School of Art. She has an extensive education practice in both the tertiary and community sectors. Her work is held in numerous collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, and she has won several awards.

TQI 2.1, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Experimenting with inkjet printing with Rowan Conroy

Participants will work together creatively with practising visual artists in the ANU’s state of the art Inkjet Research Facility. Using their fundamental knowledge of digital printing, they will explore recent developments in digital photography and inkjet-printing technologies at both small and large scale in UV cured printing. They will make their own creative artwork by collaboratively exploring different hard and soft substrates, such as glass, wood and textiles, and different creative printing techniques, on the IRFs large-format UV cured flatbed printer, as well as its conventional wide-format inkjet printer. They will have a creatively stimulating experience while reflecting on their own creative practice with their peers and contemporary artists.

Dr Rowan Conroy is a lecturer in Photography and Media Arts. His practice focuses on the use of photography to document ancient and modern, rural and urban architecture and detritus as a means to reflect upon the archaeology of the present.

TQI 2.1, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

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Making GIFS with Lucien Leon

Participants will work creatively with practising visual artists in the ANU’s Animation and Video computer laboratory. Using their fundamental knowledge of digital image editing, they will explore recent developments in digital animation and video technologies. They will make their own creative artwork by sourcing, importing, editing and exporting a series of animated GIFS for publication on a personal blog.

Dr Lucien Leon is a senior lecturer in Photography and Media Arts. He received his PhD from ANU in 2014. His animated works have featured on ABC TV and online, News Ltd, Crikey.com and in the National Library of Australia digital archive.

TQI 2.1, 2.6, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Concurrent workshop program 2 3.00–5.00 pm

Photography and film for digital stories with Rick Connors | Gandel Hall centre

Details page 49.

The creative iPad classroom with Cathy Hunt | Gandel Hall west

Details page 49.

Drawing with Adriane Boag and John Carey | Australian Garden

This drawing workshop will investigate how a layered creative response can make visible the embodied experience of this remarkable work of art. There will be a focus on geometry, which will connect light, colour and architecture using rulers, viewfinders, colour pencils and ink. The workshop will be a sustained response to a unique environment.

Adriane Boag (bio on page 19)

John Carey studied print media and drawing at the Australian National University. He began to use his iPhone as part of his ongoing practice, using images made on it by drawing with software and capturing them from life or the internet. These then became the basis for his drawing and prints. Carey began working at the National Gallery of Australia during his honours year and subsequently then acquired his first iPad. Carey used the iPad in the gallery to make drawings using an increasingly sophisticated array of apps that provide digital ink, paint, watercolour, and many other media that cannot be used in a gallery context. The iPad also provides a direct relationship with the drawing surface that is more satisfying than other means of digital input.

The approach taken by the new iPad workshop emphasises drawing where the artist explores their practice through an evolutionary process, risking all for the ultimate image. The NGA Learning and Access department has now begun an iPad program based on these experiences and has explored these ideas with great success. Carey’s

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knowledge and skill, together with the NGA’s world-class collection, will culminate to produce the upcoming iPad workshop for the National Visual Art Education Conference in 2016.

TQI 2.1, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School: Burlesque drawing

Originating in Brooklyn in 2005, Dr Sketchy’s branches draw in over 100 cities around the globe. Part performance art, part burlesque show, Dr Sketchy’s is the perfect place to get your fill of life drawing, whether you’re an art star or a scribbling newbie. In this session you will draw glamorous models and performers inspired by Andy Warhol’s The Factory, in a fun, welcoming atmosphere with a retro flavour.

TQI 2.1, 2.3, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

Exploring Islamic art in the NGA collection with Frances Wild: Patterns of resilience

During this workshop the NGA’s Islamic art collection will be used as a focus for a discussion on the topic of cultural and professional resilience. Participants will be encouraged to share their experiences of resilient teaching practice and how they have used these skills in the classroom with students and more broadly in their school community.

The workshop will begin with an overview of Tom Roberts’s travels to southern Spain where the artist visited Granada and the magical Alhambra and will then move into the Islamic Galleries. A collaborative drawing activity will be included.

Note: this workshop will close at 4.00 pm.

Frances Wild (bio on page 15)

TQI 2.1, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 6.3, 6.4, 7.4

national visual art education conference · 2016-01-18 · your participation at the 2016 national...

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