NVAEC 2024
Key information
The NVAEC 2024 page has been archived for research purposes.
View the current NVAEC landing page here.
22 – 24 January 2024
All plenary sessions are Auslan interpreted and live captioned. A selection of onsite and online workshops are Auslan interpreted.
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Are you based in Hobart or Perth? Purchase an online ticket and attend in-person at one of our satellite events at FORM, Perth, or the University of Tasmania, Hobart, at no extra cost. Select your preferred satellite event when you book your online ticket. The in-person satellite events will not be Auslan interpreted.
The National Visual Art Education Conference (NVAEC) brings together teachers, artists, cultural practitioners and thought-leaders to inspire and energise best-practice teaching and learning in the visual arts. NVAEC is a key professional development opportunity for educators working in schools, arts, health and community organisations, with a national focus on arts education.
This year’s theme REPOSITIONING challenges us to engage with art, pedagogy, and our changing world through a critical and curious lens looking at the ways we learn, how we can think in new ways about our work and the spaces in which learning thrives. NVAEC 2024 will investigate this theme through several perspectives, including First Nations knowledges, ground-breaking technologies, gender equity, access and wellbeing. Two major exhibitions will be on display at the National Gallery during the Conference – Emily Kam Kngwarray and Jordan Wolfson’s Body Sculpture.
NVAEC will begin on the afternoon of Monday 22 January 2024 and conclude at 5pm on Wednesday 24 January 2024.
NVAEC is accredited across Australia, with NESA and TQI, providing 13.5 hours of professional development for Proficient Teacher Accreditation.
Please contact outreach@nga.gov.au for more information.
This program is supported by Learning & Digital Patron Tim Fairfax AC.
Event App
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Note that you must sign in using the same email address used to purchase your ticket. If you purchased tickets for other people, please email outreach@nga.gov.au with their emails and proof of purchase, so we can add them to the conference app.
Keynote Speakers
Program subject to change.
Photographer: Eugene Hyland
Maree Clarke
Maree Clarke is a Yorta Yorta/Wamba Wamba/Mutti Mutti/Boonwurrung multi-disciplinary artist and curator. She has contributed to contemporary arts and First Nations cultural sectors for over thirty years.
Clarke was commissioned to paint the first green and gold tram for the Koorie Heritage Trust in 1988 and later became curator of the Trust where she took on a strong mentorship role. She has been affirming and connecting young people to culture ever since, by leading the way for promotion of Southeast Aboriginal artistic diversity and excellence. Maree often works collaboratively and focuses on regenerating cultural practices using new technologies and cross-generational methodologies.
Maree Clarke has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, and in 2021 was the subject of a major survey exhibition Maree Clarke – Ancestral Memories at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Other recent exhibitions include Tarnanthi, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2021), The National, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2021), and Reversible Destiny, Tokyo Photographic Museum, Japan (2021). In 2020 she was awarded the Linewide Commission for the Metro Tunnel project (current). Maree held residencies at the Pilchuck School of Glass, Seattle, and Museum of Glass, Tachoma, USA (2023), and has recently completed a multi-media work for the Women’s Project in Mildura.
Maree was the recipient of the 2020 Australia Council Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Fellowship, a finalist for the Victorian Australian of the Year in 2023, and was also awarded the Yalingwa Fellowship for a Senior First Peoples artist who has made a significant contribution to contemporary art and culture in Victoria.
Clarke is a collaborator with the University of Melbourne’s Living Archive of Aboriginal Art & Knowledge, a pilot program which is recording, digitising and documenting Maree’s broad practice with the aim to conserve and make accessible the collated materials to community.
Image courtesy of Columbus Museum of Art
Brooke Minto
Brooke A. Minto assumed the role of Executive Director and CEO of the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) in May 2023. With a career spanning over two decades, Minto has experience working for a range of museums and interdisciplinary arts organisations in the United States and abroad. Before joining CMA, Minto served as the inaugural executive director of the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums (BTA). During her time with BTA, she grew the grant-funded pilot program into a robust nonprofit membership organisation equipping Black trustees with the resources to bring meaningful and lasting change to their institutions. In 2023, Minto was recognised by the American Alliance for Museums for her work advancing diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) in the museum field.
Previously, Minto served as a managing director of Advisory Board for the Arts and held senior leadership roles at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, the New Museum in New York, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and Pérez Art Museum Miami. She began her career in the curatorial department of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Minto studied art history, and earned a master’s degree in modern art and critical studies from Columbia University. Her passion for the arts extends beyond her professional endeavours; she actively contributes to the field by serving on the board of advisors for the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth and the board of directors for Print Center New York.
Image courtesy of Columbus Museum of Art
Jennifer Lehe
Jennifer Lehe is the Beth Crane and Richard McKee Director of Learning Innovation at the Columbus Museum of Art (Ohio, USA). There she leads learning programs for audiences of all ages and ensures the museum is continually (re)imagining, experimenting, and evaluating toward deep impacts. Jen is proud to have directed the three-year research-practice collaborative between the Museum and classroom teachers, the Making Creativity Visible initiative, investigating ways to model, foster, and authentically assess creativity in K–12 settings; and to have co-launched the Wonder School laboratory preschool and the Center for Art and Social Engagement, a catalyst for civil discourse around issues of relevance to contemporary life. Jen is the Project Director of Cultivating Creative and Civic Capacities, an initiative of CMA, Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and public school teachers to nurture student imagination, critical thinking, and agency towards a better world. Jen holds a Master’s degree in Arts in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from New York University.
Jen has presented at conferences for the American Alliance of Museums, the National Arts Education Association (USA), Women in Leadership (Buckeye Association of School Administrators), and serves on the Early Childhood Development and Education Advisory Committee for Columbus State Community College and the Leadership Columbus Advisory Committee.
Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum
Ming Wong
Ming Wong (Chinese: 黄汉明; pinyin: Huáng Hànmíng) is a Singaporean contemporary artist who lives and works in Berlin, known for his re-interpretations of iconic films and performances from world cinema in his video installations, often featuring "miscastings" of himself in roles of varied identities. In 2009, at the Singapore Pavilion of the 53rd Venice Biennale, Wong represented Singapore with the body of work, Life of Imitation, for which he was awarded the Special Mention (Expanding Worlds) during the Biennale's Opening Ceremony, the first time a Singaporean artist would receive an award at the Venice Biennale. Wong is currently a Professor in Performance in the Expanded Field at Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Wayang Spaceship, commissioned by The Everyday Museum at the Singapore Art Museum, is a major public art exhibition with daily activations from July 2022 to December 2023.
Photographer: Rhett Hammerton
Tony Albert
Tony Albert (Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku-Yalanji peoples) has achieved extraordinary visibility and much critical acclaim for his visual art practice, which combines text, video, drawing, painting and three-dimensional objects.
Examining the legacy of racial and cultural misrepresentation, particularly of Australia’s Aboriginal people, Albert has developed a universal language that seeks to rewrite historical mistruths and injustice. Albert is acknowledged industry wide as a valued ambassador for Indigenous community and culture. In January 2023 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Griffith University for his significant contribution to the arts. He is the first Indigenous Trustee for the Art Gallery of New South Wales, a member of the Art Gallery of New South Wales Indigenous advisory, a board member for the City of Sydney's Public Art Panel and member of the Art & Place Board at the Queensland Children's Hospital.
Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia
Kelli Cole
Kelli Cole is a Warumungu and Luritja woman from central Australia and curator of Special Projects for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Department at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. She has worked on major projects at the Gallery since 2007, including the National Indigenous Art Triennial in 2007 and 2012, 2018, 2021 and assisted in the development of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander galleries in 2010.
She has written on various aspects of Indigenous art for Gallery publications, including the magazine Artonview, and for the 2014 special Indigenous issue of Artlink, and the 2020 September edition of the Australian Vogue magazine, which showcased artist Betty Muffler an Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia. Kelli has curated several exhibitions including Alive and Spirited 2015. She was employed as a consultant curator at the National Museum of Australia and curated Unsettled: Stories within an exhibition showcasing five leading First Nations artists, responding to the National Museum of Australia’s major exhibition, Encounter 2016. Kelli co-curated Resolution: new Indigenous photo media travelling exhibition and Body Language exhibition 2019.
Kelli is the co-curator along with Hetti Perkins of the Emily Kam Kngwarray exhibition at the National Gallery, showing 2 Dec 2023 – 28 Apr 2024.
Photographer: Matt Luciuk
Pasi Sahlberg
Pasi Sahlberg is a Finnish educator, teacher, and author. He has worked as a schoolteacher, teacher-educator, academic, and policymaker in Finland, and he has advised schools and education system leaders around the world. He served as a senior education specialist at the World Bank (Washington, DC), lead education specialist at the European Training Foundation (Torino, Italy), director general at the Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture (CIMO), and visiting professor of Practice at Harvard University. He is a recipient of several awards for his lifelong service in education, including the 2012 Education Award (Finland), the 2014 Robert Owen Award (Scotland), the 2016 Lego Prize (Denmark), Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Resident Fellowship in 2017, and Dr Paul Brock Memorial Medal in 2021. He is currently Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Andrew Meares
Associate Professor Andrew Meares is Deputy Director ANU School of Cybernetics and lead of the Cybernetic Futures group.
Andrew brings thirty years of industry experience as a Walkley award-winning photojournalist at The Sydney Morning Herald. Andrew’s research activities are in visual cybernetics which applies cybernetic approaches to help understand how systems are built, sustained and maintained through the communication and control of expectations, both imagined and observed. Andrew leads the ANU School of Cybernetics Cybernetic Imagination Residency program and was the lead curator of the exhibition Australian Cybernetic: A point through time (2022).
Andrew will appear in-conversation with Russell Storer, Head Curator, International Art to discuss Jordan Wolfson: Body Sculpture.
Program
NVAEC 2024 includes a diverse program of speakers and workshops, as well as opportunities to connect with others throughout the conference. Both onsite and online streams offer attendees an unmissable experience.
Program subject to change.
Tickets
Onsite program
$410 Early Bird (until allocation exhausted) | $480 Standard | $380 Pre-Service Teachers
Onsite ticket holders attend the conference in-person at the National Gallery with access to onsite presentations and a range of interactive workshops. This ticket includes catering as well as access to recorded sessions from the 2024 program. All plenary sessions will be Auslan interpreted and live captioned. A selection of onsite and online workshops will be Auslan interpreted.
Online program
$100 Standard | $50 Concession
Online tickets holders attend the conference online, with access to all online presentations along with a range of virtual workshop experiences. All ticketholders receive access to recorded sessions from the 2024 program, which includes all keynote speakers. All plenary sessions will be Auslan interpreted and live captioned. A selection of onsite and online workshops will be Auslan interpreted.
Are you based in Hobart or Perth? Purchase an online ticket and attend in-person at one of our satellite events at FORM, Perth, or the University of Tasmania, Hobart, at no extra cost. Select your preferred satellite event when you book your online ticket. The in-person satellite events will not be Auslan interpreted.
Satellite Events
Attendees in Perth or Hobart who purchase an online ticket can attend an in-person satellite event at FORM, Perth, or the University of Tasmania, Hobart, at no extra cost.
Days One and Two, 22 – 23 Jan 2024
Join the conference online from home.
Day Three, 24 Jan 2024
Attend the in-person satellite event at your preferred venue. Meet other attendees in your region, watch the keynote speeches from Tony Albert and Maree Clarke online, and participate in an in-person workshop.
Image courtesy of FORM Gallery
Perth Satellite Event
FORM Gallery
Wed 24 Jan 2024, 8am AWST
In-person panel: Shifting Perspectives: Reframing the Gallery Experience for Young People
FORM’s Creative Learning programs develop the critical and creative thinking skills required for young people to flourish in this ever changing world by fostering curiosity and a love of learning that supports them in making sense of the world around and within them. Galleries are a place for cultural exchange, connection and celebration. They can also be a safe space where vulnerability through creative expression can have reciprocal benefits for artmakers and audiences alike. But what if the beauty and vulnerability of living a creative life is celebrated not only within exhibition spaces, but through the children and young people that dare to bring creativity to the forefront of their lives and learning? Join this thought-provoking curated panel as we discuss what it means to be creative and the role a gallery can play that transcends its traditional walls to inspire a creative life in every aspect of education and daily experience.
Panel Participants:
Kaitlyn Elsegood | Artist & Educator
Andy Quilty | Artist & Lecturer in Fine Arts (University of Western Australia)
Bridget Reeve | Artist & Director (Ripe Art)
Elizabeth Phillips | FORM Creative Schools Project Lead
Panel Moderator
Laura Motherway | FORM Creative Learning Manager
FORM, Perth
FORM Building a State of Creativity is an award-winning independent, not-for-profit arts and cultural organisation operating across Western Australia. They aim to be a leader in the development of a vibrant creative economy for the benefit and wellbeing of all Western Australian communities. FORM’s vision is to be a major contributor in ensuring Western Australia is a thriving and connected participant in a global creative economy, and that their work is world-renowned for its ability to catalyse unique cultural expression, arising from Western Australia's healthy and prosperous communities. FORM's vision is realised through the values of their business and teams: creativity, excellence, integrity, community empowerment and collaboration. FORM's unique programs include Creative Schools, FORM Gallery & Café, Spinifex Hill Studio, Scribblers Festival, major Cultural Tourism projects such as Thomas Dambo's Giants of Mandurah and the Public Silo Trail, plus Arts and Cultural Consultancy.
School of Creative Arts, University of Tasmania. Photographer: Osborne Images
Hobart Satellite Event
Hunter Street School of Creative Arts
Wed 24 Jan 2024, 9am AEDT
In-person workshop: Self Assembly
Simon Spain will present an in-person workshop that invites participants to make a stick figure, a representation of themselves, from fallen branches by assembling limbs, torso and head together with plaster bandages and then to create a community of figures with other participants. This is a collaborative creative encounter as you own figure cannot stand alone and needs to be attached to another. Together the figures will create a community that celebrates difference.
Simon Spain is a visual and socially engaged artist with over thirty-years’ experience of delivering and designing programming for children and young people internationally and was founding Creative Producer of ArtPlay and Signal in Melbourne. Simon is a highly effective leader of arts initiatives, fund raiser and innovator. He is co-Director of all that we are and an Australia Council Fellow for Arts Community and Cultural Development. He is a Tate International associate, working with the Tate on programs for socially engaged artists. He is Chair of Regional Arts Australia and Arts and Culture representative for the Tasmanian B4 Early Years Coalition. Simon recently completed a practice-based PhD at RMIT in Melbourne.
Tasmanian Art Teachers Association
The Hobart satellite event is hosted by the Tasmanian Art Teachers Association (TATA).
TATA encourages and promotes all facets of Art Education, providing a state focus for all such activity in Tasmania, with its council comprising a diverse range of art education specialists across all levels of Tasmanian education. TATA serves members who teach art in both specialist and non-special capacities, student art teachers and professionals engaged in art education.
Workshops
Photo supplied by the artist
Amy Claire Mills
Sensory Journeys
(Workshop cancelled - Amy is unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances)
Join in on a journey of self-discovery to unlock the hidden aspects of art through sensory portraits in this immersive workshop. Let yourself delve into a world of tactile and sensory materials that will take you beyond traditional portraiture and let you explore creative expression in a new way.
Experience a diverse range of materials, including soft fabrics, glossy sequins, furry objects and textured papers, as you explore through play different artistic processes.
Led by artist Amy Claire Mills, this unique workshop will guide you through Amy’s art practice, from her passion for curating accessible exhibitions to how she uses tactile soft sculptures to inspire creativity and imagination.
Amy will guide you in developing a personal portrait that blends the visual and sensory realms, discovering how textures, sounds, patterns, and colours evoke emotions and memories. Learn how to turn these sensory experiences into captivating self-portraits that reflect your unique artistic expression.
Amy Claire Mills is an artist, curator, and producer residing and working in Eora/Sydney on Gadigal and Wangal land. Her art practice focuses on advocacy, identity, and resistance, which is influenced by her experiences as a disabled woman. Through her work, Amy explores disability culture and its social and political impacts, taking on both the role of an artist and subject. Her artworks serve as a form of protest, introducing new vocabularies such as softness, tactility, empathy, and care.
Since graduating with a Fine Arts Degree from UNSW, Amy has collaborated with community art organisations, councils, and national institutions to curate and produce exhibitions and events focusing on embedding access and greater representation for disabled artists.
Image courtesy of SWISP Lab
SWISP Lab - Online only
Dr Sarah Healy and Associate Professor Kate Coleman
The virtual and immersive have brought about forms of art education research dissemination that go beyond traditional academic publishing norms, spreading into community-based sites that have historically sat beyond the purview of academia. This change was catalysed by the extended pandemic lockdown period in Melbourne, Australia, which forced researchers to explore virtual worlds for exhibiting and disseminating scholarly outputs as “data creativities” (Spreadborough et al., 2022). In this 90-minute interactive workshop we build on the rich legacy of metaverse-thinking and invite participants to delve into the concept of the metaverse as a speculative realm for enhancing art education by immersing themselves in our "Hacking the Anthropocene Metaverse” - the metaverse attached to our global project led by SWISP (Speculative Wanderings in Space and Place) Lab at the University of Melbourne.
Associate Professor Kate Coleman is co-lead of SWISP Lab with Dr Sarah Healy. Kate is the AARE co-convenor of the Arts Education Practice Research SIG, and CI on‘The Learning with the Land’, SSHRC project at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Kate is an Academic Convenor for the University of Melbourne, Petascale Campus. Her research and teaching is positioned in the intersection of art, design, digital, practice, culture and data.
Dr Sarah Healy is co-lead of SWISP Lab with Dr Kate Coleman. She is an inaugural Melbourne Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne. Best known for her contributions to the fields of critical affect studies, digital methods and the posthumanities, Sarah’s interdisciplinary program of research involves research collaborations with academics, artists, practitioners and educators from around the world.
Image courtesy of Charmaine Papertalk Green
Red Room Poetry
Dr Charmaine Papertalk Green
Award winning Yamaji poet Dr Charmaine Papertalk Green offers two workshops that encompasses ekphrastic poetry principles and methodology to conference participants. There will be selected exhibitions within National Gallery Australia for participants to analyse and apply the ekphrastic poetry approach with the aim of participants producing one fully realised poem.
A Wajarri, Badimaya, Wilunyu (Southern Yamatji) woman of the Yamaji Nation of Western Australia. Charmaine describes herself as an artist, poet and storyteller who privileges Yamaji storytelling and Yamaji worldviews. She has written five books winning several awards including the prestigious 2020 Australian Literacy Society Gold Medal. Charmaine’s visual art mediums include 2D acrylic paintings, multimedia collages and print making .
Image courtesy of Mikaela Jade
Indigital
Mikaela Jade
Mikaela is a Cabrogal woman of the Dharug-speaking Nation of Sydney. She began her career as a national park ranger, drawing on her background in environmental biology. While working in the remote Northern Territory, she started a project that led her to found Indigital: Australia’s first Indigenous Edu-tech company.
Through Indigital, Mikaela seeks to develop innovative ways to digitise and translate knowledge and culture from remote and ancient communities. Her aim is for Indigital to help create meaningful pathways for Indigenous people into the digital economy and the creation of future technologies.
Mikaela's visionary work and achievements have been widely recognised. In 2022 alone, Mikaela was announced as one of 15 leaders to be awarded the Schwab Foundation 2022 Social Innovators of the Year award, was nominated for the ACT Australian of the Year Award, and was named ANU Indigenous Alumna of the Year. Mikaela has spoken at the United Nations in New York to demonstrate the impact of new technologies in Indigenous communities, is a member of the WEF Metaverse Governance Steering Group, and a delegate on the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Image courtesy of Nicole Barakat
Creative Starting Points
Nicole Barakat
Join artist Nicole Barakat for an enjoyable workshop supporting educators to develop new strategies for creative practice. Come with a creative curiosity for playing and experimenting with materials, processes and ideas. The workshop includes diverse approaches to creative practice, encouraging play and risk-taking with materials and techniques, as well as self-evaluation and critical reflection.
Nicole Barakat is a Kfarsghabi, Lebanese artist living on the lands and waters of the Wangal People. She works with deep listening and intuitive processes with intentions to transform the conditions of everyday life. Her artwork engages unconventional approaches to art-making, creating intricate works that embody the love and patience characteristic of traditional textile practices. Her works include hand-stitched and hand-cut cloth and paper drawings, sculptural forms made with her own hair, cloth and plant materials as well as live work where she uses her voice as a material.
Untitled (Portrait of Barbara Blackman), 1976, Charles Blackman OBE, charcoal on paper. Purchased by the National Portrait Gallery in 2009 © Charles Blackman/Copyright Agency, 2023
Lines of Connection - A workshop designed for Early Learning and Primary educators.
National Portrait Gallery
Discover the power of portraiture to tell stories, create connections and generate new learning. Expand your critical thinking and visual-literacy skills through peer discussion of select portraits. Inspired by artist practice on display throughout the National Portrait Gallery, explore a range of drawing activities easily transferred to the classroom. Participants will gain a practical tool kit of activities, resources and ideas to bring back to your students in visual arts programs and integrate into other curriculum areas.
Photo credit: Katie Rivers
Of Water
Bundanon
Participate in a Bundanon workshop and learn how place-based learning informs the art making experience. Consider how site-responsive practices can be applied in your own educational setting. The workshop is a process driven experience that focuses on water narratives.
Who are you and what is your water story? Reflect on what you know about water near you and your relationships to water. Do you swim? Do you have a strong memory of walking in the rain? Or through a storm? Represent this relationship to water using water-based media and oil pastels to create a triptych. Each panel focuses on: personal water stories, consideration of water in the environment, and water in this place. The exercise explores water as a medium for art making and utilises both traditional and experimental approaches. Together, consider the group’s collective work in a grid to notice connections, similarities and differences.
Bundanon is many things. An art museum embedded in the landscape. A wildlife sanctuary set on 1000 hectares. A gift to the Australian people. Bundanon is a unique place for creative learning. Bundanon respects that this has always been a place for sharing culture by First Peoples. Our programs include First Nations ways of knowing, being and doing. Our learning programs are informed by place and caring for Country; the local environment and sustainability guide all learning experiences. Bundanon believes that everyone is an artist. The dynamic learning experiences activate experimental inquiry and creative risk. Art and artists are central to our learning programs, with a focus on process over product. A new suite of learning responds to each new exhibition season in the Art Museum. Contemporary art, diverse cultures, the Bundanon collection and unique ecologies are brought into focus through the learning programs. Bundanon has learning programs for everyone. We develop inclusive programs for learners of all abilities, ages and experience and consult each group on their learning needs.
Image courtesy of the Biennale of Sydney
Biennale of Sydney: Ten Thousand Suns
The Biennale of Sydney returns in 2024 with Ten Thousand Suns, directed by Cosmin Costinaş and Inti Guerrero. The exhibition stems from an acknowledgment of a multiplicity of perspectives, cosmologies, and ways of life that have always woven together the world under the sun. At the National Visual Art Education Conference 2024, Program Producer Michael Kennedy will provide a presentation previewing the content of the 2024 Biennale, at White Bay Power Station.
The presentation will speak to the works in the 24th Biennale of Sydney that depict, utilise or discuss First Nations knowledges in both a local and international context; including works by First Peoples from across Australia, the Pacific region, South East Asia, Central America and beyond. The presentation also features a work-by-work breakdown of the artworks featured in the 2024 school tours, as well as additional information about Schools Programs and resources offered as part of the exhibition.
Image courtesy of Helen Yip
Embodied Lenses: Investigating the Body as Site
Wendy Ramsay & Helen Yip
The human body offers artists and audiences immediacy, presence and universal humanity, acting as a powerful site and means for transformation and exchange. By re-visioning, disrupting and re-envisioning established cultural narratives and constructs surrounding the body across time and place, artists reveal the complexities of human nature, perception and existence.
This workshop will involve a practical investigation of the body in contemporary practice, referencing the innovative work of Ming Wong, Christian Thompson, Mella Jaarsma, Rebecca Horn and Brooke DiDonato. Workshop participants will develop an artwork incorporating wearable sculpture, props and installation. Artist investigations and artmaking tasks will be provided to support students’ conceptual and material practice as artists.
As artist Nick Cave illuminates, ‘we all perform identity’, presenting and projecting ourselves to the world whilst simultaneously viewing ourselves and each other; positioning and repositioning the body through a critical and curious lens to make space for new perspectives, actions and interventions. All the world’s a stage where everything is everywhere, all at once, for us to navigate, debate, contemplate and relocate.
Wendy Ramsay is a Visual Arts educator with extensive experience in primary, secondary and tertiary contexts, including head teacher, state consultant, deputy principal, tertiary lecturer and currently casual academic and tertiary supervisor at the University of Technology Sydney, past Co-President and current Director of Professional Learning, Visual Arts and Design Educators Association NSW.
Helen Yip is a secondary Visual Arts teacher highly experienced in teaching Stage 4-6 Visual Arts, Photographic and Digital Media and Photography, Video and Digital Imaging. She is currently the Executive Member for Research and Resource Development for VADEA NSW and has previously been VADEA’s Director of Professional Learning and Director of Communications.
Image courtesy of Sarah Eve
Advocating for Visual Arts Careers
Sarah Eve
This workshop offers participants an opportunity to reposition and explore ways to advocate for Visual Arts Careers. Do students and parents perceive an Art career solely as the archetype of a struggling artist? We need to be incorporating Visual Art careers into the curriculum as a way to expose the diverse career possibilities within the Art world. I will be sharing my personal collection of activities and resources, touching on how I harness AI to assist in their creation. Participants will have the opportunity to develop a scope and sequence for Arts career activities, tailored to specific age groups. These activities demonstrate why Art is significant, enjoyable, and a viable career option in the sustainable, ethical, and successful field of Visual Arts. With the aim to empower students to navigate the Art world with confidence and emphasize the importance of Visual Arts to society.
Sarah has completed a Bachelor of Fine Art and a Diploma of Secondary Education. She holds a Master of Education, specializing in Gifted and Talented Education. Sarah has received a National Excellence in Teaching Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to education. Sarah is a member of the Community of Practice for Educators with NAVA. She currently teaches at Perth Modern School, Western Australia's singular selective high school for academically gifted and talented students. She has spent over a decade encouraging her students to follow their creative journey, Sarah has returned as an emerging artist in the Boorloo/Perth community.
Image courtesy of Jemima Saunders
How to Inspire Original Ideas
Jemima Saunders
Helping our students to come up with ideas is central to our work as educators. Take some time to engage with your own curiosity and creative thought processes. Participate in a range of practical activities aimed at initiating concepts for artworks that move beyond the cliché of high school art. This is an interactive and collaborative session. Walk away with a thread of possibilities for you and your students in developing authentic voice through art.
Jemima is a Visual Arts and Film Production teacher currently working in the senior secondary space at Darwin High School. In her own arts practice she works across textiles, printmaking and painting. Jemima has worked in public, private, urban, rural, remote, primary, special education and secondary teaching in the NT and country NSW. She was born and raised in Tumut NSW on Wiradjuri country and now lives and works in Darwin NT on the land of the Larrakia people with her family. She is the president of the Art Educators of The Northern Territory, a wonderful collection of creative and resourceful specialist teachers.
Image courtesy of the University of South Australia
Meaningful planning with First Nation’s arts perspectives
Onsite and online
In this workshop, attendees will be introduced to the Arts Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) planning framework and how they have adapted and used it in the first year Foundations of Arts Education course to introduce students to an inquiry approach to planning in the arts. The workshop will use creative body-based learning strategies used in the course.
Examples of pre-service teacher planning will show how this approach is developing culturally responsive pedagogies and pre-service teachers’ increased confidence with exploring First Nations Perspectives; using First Nations Australian arts works as a starting point for broader arts engagement.
As attendees work together in this workshop, the rationale for this approach, the strengths, and successes, will be discussed, concluding with a frank and open conversation about challenges faced and future plans.
Anne-Marie Shin works in early childhood with research interests in arts based and culturally responsive pedagogies. Robyn Carmody works in initial teacher education in the arts, curriculum and assessment, and professional experience for masters and undergraduate students. PJ Edwards works in Aboriginal Education and is interested in decolonising literacy practices as a model for inclusive literacy education using Aboriginal languages, and provides leadership in culturally responsive pedagogies to support teachers.
Image courtesy of Anna Carrig
The Art of Writing
Anna Carrig
Writing is an art in and of itself. Within the visual arts classroom the focus is often on making, however art theory demands that students are able to describe and analyse works of art and artistic practices. There can be an assumption that writing is an innate skill or that by secondary school students are able to write. The reality is however that students are often without foundational skills that would enable them to craft more effective texts. This workshop will model a variety of simple strategies that can help art students become better writers. Participants will engage in exercises to experiment with these approaches and apply them within the visual arts context. Grounded in research and an understanding of how literacy corresponds with students' socio-cultural position the workshop will include ideas for how students from diverse backgrounds may be supported and how high achieving students might be extended.
Anna has over a decade of experience in education and is passionate about literature and the visual arts. In her roles she has been interested in respectfully amplifying First Nations voices in the curriculum. Anna was the Learning Convenor at the National Gallery of Australia for four years. In recent years she returned to the classroom, teaching English at Northcote High School and previously at Hampton Park Secondary College. Anna holds a Deans Scholar for the Arts/Honours (Literature/Art History) from Monash University, a Master of Teaching from Deakin University and is an alumnus of Teach for Australia.
Image courtesy of Maggie-Jean Douglas and Noah Watson
Art Through Culture
The Art Through Culture principles are the Learning and Digital teams’ contribution to the National Gallery of Australia’s First Nations First commitment. We consider the principles in the work we do to ensure all engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and artists is always respectful.
Our First Nations educators Maggie-Jean Douglas and Noah Watson will share the Art Through Culture principles with participants and demonstrate practical examples. Participants will then be invited to discuss and workshop how they can take the principles back into their own learning environments.
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Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia
Access and Inclusion
The National Gallery of Australia Access and Inclusion programs are designed with, by, and for people living with visible and hidden disability. Tours and workshops engage participants with creativity through the national collection.
This workshop will introduce techniques and strategies from access programs that can be adapted to the classroom to develop visual language, prioritise looking for interpretation, foster reflection, and reduce anxiety.
This workshop will be facilitated by the National Gallery Access and Inclusion team: Adriane Boag, Elizabeth Page and Dianne McClaughlin.
Image courtesy of Leanne Waterhouse
Cross-disciplinary learning and teaching methods: the influence of space on learning, thinking like an artist in the classroom, and lifelong learning through art.
Dr. Naomi Zouwer, Dr. Olivia Hamilton (RMIT) and Leanne Waterhouse (NGA)
This session will include creative making activities outside and discussion on the processes and outcomes of a cross-disciplinary collaboration between RMIT (Melbourne) interior design students, University of Canberra (UC) Primary Education Creative Arts Specialist students and the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) Learning team. The collaboration is a pilot program exploring and developing cross-disciplinary learning and teaching methods. The teachers from each institution and the education manager from the National Gallery brought to the collaboration their specific expertise; the influence of space on learning, thinking like an artist in the classroom, and lifelong learning through art.
Image courtesy of Annika Romeyn and Tess Barker
Gallery Experience: Drawing Connections
How do we provide memorable and meaningful creative opportunities for students to engage with the works of art in the National Gallery?
This 90-minute, gallery-based experience is facilitated by National Gallery Lead Artist Educators Annika Romeyn and Tess Barker. Participants will engage with a variety of experimental drawing and creative activities designed to encourage deep connections to works of art through the voice of the artist and draw connections to our own lived experiences.
Opportunities to collaborate will be woven throughout the workshop. Participants will be encouraged to reflect upon and respond to the creative prompts, and discuss how these strategies can be applied in the classroom or other learning environments.
Experience
Image courtesy of Verity Lane Market
Onsite experiences:
Day one: Welcome to Country, refreshments, opportunities to explore the Gallery and a curatorial talk and walk-through of the Emily Kam Kngwarray exhibition.
Day two: Breakfast at the National Gallery, lunchtime conversations and an evening social event at Verity Lane including live music, dinner and transport to the venue.
Day three: Breakfast panel with conference speakers, lunchtime conversations and a reflection walk in the sculpture garden.
Online experiences:
Online-only workshops tailored to the digital experience with SWSIP Lab.
Watch and participate in Q&A for all keynote sessions, and access networking channels with online and on-site attendees.
If you’re joining us online from Perth or Hobart, visit our satellite event on the final day of the conference for a special experience, with in-person workshops. Read more at Satellite Events
Teachers’ Voice
The Teachers’ Voice sessions have been curated in partnership with the Art Education Associations of Australia: VADEA NSW, AEV VIC, TATA TAS, ArtEdWa WA, AENT NT, QATA QLD, Art Education Australia
More to be announced.
Image courtesy of Lim Kok Boon
Inquiring Minds: The Digital Evolution of Art Pedagogy in Singapore Secondary Schools
Lim Kok Boon
"Inquiring Minds: The Digital Evolution of Art Pedagogy in Singapore Secondary Schools" delves into how Singapore's secondary school art teachers use Educational Technology (EdTech), particularly in supporting inquiry-based learning. Guided by the Singapore Teachers' Academy for the aRts (STAR)'s Art Inquiry Model, learning activities match the inquiry phases of Connect & Wonder, Investigate, Make, Express, and Reflect. A Thematic Analysis of data from art educators (N=127) revealed varied EdTech applications across these phases. Examples include using museum websites in the 'Connect & Wonder' phase, Learning Management Systems in 'Investigate', digital art apps like ProCreate in 'Make', and platforms like Padlet and Google Slides in 'Express' and 'Reflect' phases, respectively. As Singapore amplifies its technology integration with Personal Learning Devices for students, the study showcases a blending of conventional art pedagogy with modern digital tools, promoting innovative art learning experiences.
Lim Kok Boon, an Art Master Teacher at the Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the Arts (STAR) provides professional development and designs pedagogical resources for Singapore's art educators. His interests span inquiry-based learning, visual literacy, and digital technology integration in art education. A firm advocate of design thinking, museum-based learning, dialogue talk and art criticism, Lim believes teachers must continuously adapt as learners. He views art education as the foundational cornerstone of creativity in the curriculum.
Image courtesy of Mary McGillivray
TikTok helped me learn good: Communicating expertise in online video
Mary McGillivray
At a time when anti-intellectualism and mistrust in experts is on the rise, it’s never been more important for researchers to connect with the public in meaningful ways. My field, medieval and renaissance European art, has a (not undeserved) reputation for being inaccessible and often elitist, however it doesn’t have to be this way. This paper will explore ways that arts and culture researchers and academics can communicate their research to a general audience using online video.
The presentation will include case studies from my own doctoral research project, “Tricking the public eye: Communicating research on trecento fictive marble”, including my collaboration with ABC Education on a video series aligned to the Australian secondary school curriculum titled “Renaissance Italy”. The series choses objects on display at public galleries in Australia to highlight key learning outcomes for the year 8 history curriculum, and is an example of how to bring together museums, broadcasters, educators and researchers to create accurate and engaging education content for classrooms.
The talk will critically compare this project with more organic educational social media video content and discuss the pros and cons of prioritising algorithmic discoverability in the education space.
Mary McGillivray is a PhD student at the University of Melbourne and content creator making visual culture analysis accessible for the next generation. She holds a Masters degree in History of Art and Architecture from the University of Cambridge, and was featured on the Australian’s Arts and Culture 100 for 2022.
Mary has worked with art galleries and cultural institutions across Australia, the UK, and Europe to bring their collections to a massive online audience of highly engaged young viewers. Her collaborations include the UK Art Fund, National Gallery London, Australian Institute for Art History, and the ABC.
Image courtesy of Jane Polley
The Australian Curriculum Version 9.0: Refreshed, repositioned, and authentic
Jane Polley
This session is for Visual Art educators to inform them of the key changes to the Australian Curriculum. Built on the strong foundations of Version 8.4, The Arts learning area Version 9.0 moves to a four-strand organisational structure. The new structure will help teachers to understand the conceptual underpinnings and processes of arts pedagogy. The strands of exploring and responding, developing practices and skills, creating and making, and presenting and performing, will be unpacked. The authentic and explicit inclusion of First Nations’ content, and how it can be approached in culturally responsive ways, will be explained. A clarification of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property rights (now a Years 7-8 content description) will be given. Opportunities for intersections with other learning areas such as Technologies will be shared, especially in the context of digital creativity. Visual Arts in the classroom is a highly relevant, dynamic, and creative subject for students, and a refreshed curriculum helps to position them for the future.
Jane Polley (M. Ed) is the Curriculum Specialist, The Arts, at the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). She presents nationally and internationally on the transformative power of arts pedagogies and the effects of education policy on curriculum conceptualisation. Jane taught for twenty-five years in a diversity of schools before a six-year stint as the Curriculum Lead for The Arts in the Tasmanian Department of Education. She served as Chair of the Tasmanian Theatre Company and was an executive board member for Drama Australia and National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE). She has performed as a professional actor, deviser, and voice over artist.
Image courtesy of Kathryn Hendy-Ekers
Case study - Contemporary Art on the Road program
Dr. Kathryn Hendy-Ekers
Dr. Kathryn Hendy-Ekers is the Curriculum Manager for Visual Arts, Media and Design at the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. She is responsible for the Visual Arts and Media curriculums from Foundation to Year 12. Kathryn has a Master of Education majoring in Visual Arts from the University of New South Wales and a PhD from Charles Sturt University. She is an experienced educator with teaching experience in Primary and Secondary schools both in Victoria, interstate and in South East Asia. She has an interest in the relationships between curriculum and the Arts industry through teaching and learning in Art galleries and museums and the role of artists working in schools. Her research for her PhD investigated how teachers and museum educators enacted curriculum in contemporary art museums. Kathryn lectures in Visual Arts Education at the Australian Catholic University.
Image courtesy of Wendy Richdale
Reflections on the Tertiary Gallery: An active space for learning
Wendy Richdale – Academic Programme Manager: Contemporary Art
Dr Tamsin Green – Senior Academic Staff Member and Ramp Gallery Curator (both from Wintec Te Pūkenga, Hamilton, New Zealand)
This joint presentation reflects on the tertiary gallery and its repositioning as an active learning space for ākonga (students) at on campus gallery Ramp Gallery. Drawing on current PhD research into the tertiary art gallery sector in Aotearoa, this paper will present reflective observations from the initial data collection from across the sector. Utilising Ramp Gallery as a case study, this presentation also explores ways the gallery has enacted active participation as a pedagogical tool, such as the use of a ‘tuakana teina’ model of exhibition making and mentorship to enhance this active mode of learning. This model of practices informs Ramp Gallery’s curatorial and public programming and is the foundation for the strategic direction of the gallery.
Wendy Richdale is a gallery curator and academic manager of the contemporary art and communication programmes at Wintec School of Media Arts, a tertiary education provider in Hamilton, New Zealand.
Dr Tamsin Green currently works in the school of Media Arts at Wintec Te Pūkenga as a Senior Academic, and also as Curator to on-campus gallery, Ramp.
Image courtesy of Sarah Brooke
a/r/tographical inquiry as visual arts professional learning
Sarah Brooke
This paper explores how a/r/tography can be used for visual arts professional learning, particularly in primary classroom settings. Four teachers (three generalist primary teachers and one specialist visual arts teacher/PhD researcher) engaged in a/r/tographical inquiry through contiguous art making and story sharing. Through the metaphor of a painted quadriptych made by the PhD researcher, this presentation unravels their process of (be)coming together in a/r/tographical inquiry as professional learning.
The quadriptych offers a map for co-inquirers to collaboratively pursue contiguous learning, which can become available in visual arts teaching and professional learning experiences. This map can be used to concurrently track and unravel professional learning insights enabled over the duration of one 10 week Tasmanian school term. This process invites reimagination of how visual arts professional learning can enhance teachers' sense of visual arts pedagogical confidence and competence. From this the utility of a/r/tography for fostering teachers' contiguous learning with and from each other is articulated.
Sarah Brooke is a PhD student and sessional lecturer in Arts Education with the University of Tasmania. Sarah is also a specialist visual arts teacher with extensive experience teaching across grades K–12. Sarah’s research is motivated by her own experiences of visual arts education and her interest in meaning making and understanding adopting visual arts practices and processes. She is particularly interested in how a/r/tography can help teachers develop their confidence and competence in visual arts education and create meaningful learning experiences for their students. Sarah is President of the Tasmanian Art Teachers Association and a practicing artist who often explores and articulates complex concepts and understandings through her art practice.
Image courtesy of Anne-Marie Cullinan
The Significance of Art Creation for Deep and Rich Learning
Anne-Marie Cullinan
When engaging with digital learning, only the senses of sight and sound and a limited sense of touch and bodily movement are used. The speed of interaction and high-resolution images satisfy the immediate need for entertainment, but, without connecting to all of the senses, we rarely achieve deep and rich engagement with the world. When the student handles materials, the sensory process provides more insight, as if the material magically “speaks”, producing deep engagement and empowering imagination and creativity. The research significance lies in the place within today’s digital “hands-free” society to understand the benefits of engagement through the sensory experience of material handling. It recognises the importance of honouring hands-on tactile learning traditions and their community benefits. The presentation will highlight research conducted in the Northern Territory with students and teachers, who through mindfulness and material-handling workshops were engaged in a rich learning space.
Anne-Marie Cullinan is a Master's by Research student at Charles Darwin University in the NT, investigating Art and Education through the magical effects of material handling. Her passion is sensory learning and the resulting benefits to well-being. Originally a commercial designer, she has worked as a primary, secondary and special needs education teacher. Anne-Marie’s art practice is a contemporary fresco process, manipulating a textural plaster ground with ochres and mineral watercolour paints inspired by the ochre colours of the NT. She has presented her findings within Australia and the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Art Educators Conference in Wellington, 2023.
Image courtesy of Bill Tink
Waste 2 Art – Repositioning our Attitudes towards Waste and Representation
Bill Tink
NetWaste developed the Waste 2 Art competition to use artmaking approaches to engage diverse communities. The environmental issues facing our world are explored through material choices that are sympathetic to the artist's subject matter. Participants in Waste 2 Art convey important and often complex meanings to their audience in an attempt to educate, inform and influence their audience.
Attendees will learn about the various approaches different councils, galleries and community groups can take in developing the inclusive Waste 2 Art Exhibitions held across regional NSW. Each local Waste 2 Art competition gives equal focus to creative expression and environmental education. Waste to Art is a community art exhibition and competition that aims to educate, inform, and challenge the way we look at waste in our communities.
Bill Tink has taught high school Visual Arts, History, Visual Design, English, and Marine Studies in both mainstream and alternate education settings. He has held several exhibitions including a solo exhibition at the Orange Regional Gallery which holds one of his works in its collection. Bill has been a sessional academic at Charles Sturt University and now brings his 20 years of experience in education to the Environmental Learning Advisor role at NetWaste.
Image courtesy of Vide Freiberg
Cultural Sensitivity in Art Teaching: Honouring Indigenous Narratives
Vide Freiberg
In "Navigating Indigenous Art Resources in Education: My Journey Towards Authenticity," Vide Freiberg positions herself as an educator operating within the dominant core of the education system identifying as neither Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. Subsequently, she grapples with the challenges of authentically incorporating First Nations Perspectives into the Australian Curriculum. Focused on the Visual Arts, Freiberg explores the complexities and sophistication of First Nations knowledge, emphasising the need to avoid misrepresentation and 'othering.' Using Vernon Ah Kee's "Neither Pride nor Courage" as a case study, Freiberg delves into the artist's intent, visual evidence, and the artwork's title. Ah Kee's direct communication, devoid of non-Indigenous mediation, empowers him as a knowledge holder, challenging stereotypes and fostering a nuanced understanding of First Nations identity. The paper underscores the importance of respecting cultural protocols, critically examining resources, and guiding students to appreciate the multifaceted nature of First Nations representation. Ultimately, Freiberg advocates for a vigilant and critical approach to work toward ensuring the authentic integration of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander knowledge into art education.
Vide Freiberg, an adept art teacher and devoted member of the Western Cape College community in Weipa, Cape York, possesses over 15 years of teaching experience. Merging a passion for art with a profound commitment to cultural inclusivity, Vide's upbringing in an Indigenous community has instilled in her a deep respect for culture and social justice. Her career trajectory, spanning galleries, TAFE, an Independent First Nations school, the Youth Justice system, and a significant five-year tenure in Cape York, reflects a diverse and dedicated approach to education.
Accommodation
Our accommodation partners offer the following options to book a hotel for your stay in Canberra.
- Superior King – $195
- One bedroom apartment – $235
Please visit the Avenue Hotel website to book.
80 Northbourne Avenue, Braddon, Canberra 2602
reservations@avenuehotel.com.au, 1800 828 000
Please visit the Hotel Realm website and use the 'NVAEC24' promo code to receive the Conference rate when booking.
18 National Circuit, Barton, Canberra,
reservations@domahotels.com.au, +61 2 6163 1888
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