Join artist and curator Nicholas Currie (Mununjali clan of the Yugambeh language group, with connection to Kuku Yalanji) in this workshop, which explores the material and conceptual frameworks interlinked within his practice spanning painting, sculpture and performance. Humour and kindness run as undercurrents throughout his work.
Teachers will explore how Indigenised materials and conceptual thinking affect art practices and the interpretation of contemporary art today. Indigenous pedagogy spans a kaleidoscopic range of thinking in relation to contemporary art, there’s no single fixed approach, but a rich variety of perspectives. In Currie’s practice, material and conceptual frameworks are closely interlinked: the materials the artist uses carry meaning just as much as the ideas behind them. In this workshop, we invite participants to expand their thinking around how this connection might shape and inform their own choices with materials and art making. Together, through hands-on exercises with collage and assemblage and open discussion, teachers have the opportunity to play and explore these ideas with the artist.
This professional learning session equips teachers with adaptable classroom activities and curriculum-aligned approaches that foster experimentation, material inquiry and creative thinking across the Victorian Curriculum F–10, VCE Art Making and Exhibiting, VCE Art Creative Practice study designs and Visual Art Studio. Pre-Service Teachers are also welcome.
Learning Outcomes
By participating in this workshop, teachers will:
- Explore how Indigenous perspectives, materials, symbolism and conceptual thinking can inform contemporary visual arts practice.
- Develop an understanding of how artists communicate ideas, meaning and cultural perspectives through materials, processes, symbolism and visual language.
- Experiment with collage and assemblage to explore how materials, found objects, layering, symbolism and composition can be used to communicate ideas.
- Reflect on their own art-making practices, considering how material choices and processes can influence meaning and interpretation.
- Explore Indigenous pedagogies and consider how ways of knowing, learning and communicating can inform approaches to contemporary art education.
- Analyse and discuss artworks through the perspectives of artist, artwork and audience, considering how cultural and social contexts influence interpretation.
- Develop strategies for incorporating culturally responsive and respectful approaches to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives within visual arts teaching.
- Apply ideas from the workshop to classroom practice, developing opportunities for students to make, respond to and discuss visual artworks.
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