2018 Annual Conference

NGV, ACMI, ACCA, Testing Grounds, and Melbourne Town Hall

Timed to coincide with the NGV Triennial and ACCA’s Unfinished Business, the 2018 Annual Conference was based at Testing Grounds and operated across a number of venues. The conference featured acclaimed artists Sally Smart, Michael Peck, Emily Floyd, Sophie Takách, Emma Davies and Hermès artisans. It also included an opportunity to discover meaningful learning experiences around the Triennial and using virtual reality (VR) with students.

It was an amazing opportunity for participants to develop their skills, get inspired by contemporary artists, make strong connections with other art educators, and become empowered in their role.

2018 Program overview

FamilyTreeHouse (femmage, shadows and symptoms) – Sally Smart – NGV Education Studios
Sally Smart is represented in leading collections around the world, exhibiting since 1988 in Australia and internationally. Working with collage, large-scale assemblage installations and increasingly, performance and video, her practice engages identity politics, ideas relating to the body, the home and history.

Objects in Space – Michael Peck – NGV Education Studios

Michael has produced commissioned work in London, Berlin and New York and has undertaken studio residencies at Paradise Hills Studio’s, Blender studios and was Artist in Residence at Birrarung House in 2013. Michael has been a finalist in The Archibald Prize, The Sulman Prize, The Doug Moran Portrait Prize, The Dobell Drawing Prize, the Metro 5 Award, The City of Hobart art Prize and received the National Gallery of Victoria Trustees Award. His current practice is a cross discipline of painting, drawing and site-specific installation works exploring notions of memory and the shaping of identity.

NGV Triennial highlights – NGV Education Team – NGV Schools Entrance

A lively introduction to exhibition highlights that will stimulate students’ curiosity and imagination and build confidence in responding to contemporary art and design.

Explore and Draw NGV Triennial – NGV Education Team – NGV Schools Entrance

Working with an educator, students will explore the NGV Triennial with iPads, engaging with a variety of works to inspire their own digital works of art. This session will stimulate students’ curiosity, using a range of apps and digital techniques to respond to contemporary art and design.

Mathemagical pattern perfection – NGV Education Team – NGV Schools Entrance

Inspired by the myriad ways artists and designers in the NGV Triennial have used and created pattern, students will explore how to use kaleidoscopic colour, rhythmic repetition and symmetry to create their own perfect patterns. Elect to do this program with either traditional media or iPads (using apps such as Amaziograph, Isometric and Fragment).

Visual Thinking Strategies – Carly Grace (Heide Museum of Modern Art) – NGV Education Theatre

Carly Grace is an artist and visual arts educator based in Melbourne, Australia. She specialises in interpretation education and has an extensive experience in designing and delivering diverse education and public programs within museums, community arts and diverse educational settings. She is currently the Education Manager at Heide Museum of Modern Art where she specialises in training educators in Visual Thinking Strategies. Her philosophy for visual arts’ education is connecting people with the opportunities that art making and engagement in art culture can have in enriching their lives.

yielding//unyielding – Sophie Takách – ACCA

Sophie Takách makes performative sculptural objects that incorporate ephemeral installation and movement, directing attention to the embodied quality of experience. The physical components are conceived as devices that enable further action to take place, acting as support structure or simple machines; basic mechanical objects that amplify the application of force. Drawing on a deep interest in science and the underlying physical processes of the universe, she exploits the interactions between force and matter to capture transitional states of change. She is currently exhibiting as part of Unfinished Business until March 21, 2018 at ACCA. She lives and works in Melbourne, and is currently undertaking postgraduate research at MADA, Monash University.

Reimagining space and perspective through 360-degree filmmaking – Ellen Malloy – ACMI Studio One

Ellen is an educator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. She has completed a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts (Media Arts) and is a qualified primary teacher and graphic artist. She is a passionate animator, filmmaker and photographer and is currently creating the dynamic education program for Wonderland, ACMI’s Winter Masterpiece exhibition.

Transforming materials – Emma Davies – NGV Education Studios

Emma’s process of discovery and invention is largely experimental. She satisfies her curiosity by working with contemporary materials and using unconventional methods to challenge the possibilities of each creation. Her reward is in removing materials from common functionality such as packaging and being able to transform what is intrinsically ugly into something beautiful. Currently she is working on a range of private commissions.

Studio Essentials – David Becerra – NGV Education Studios

The artistic work of David Becerra focuses on the search for similarities among the symbolic universes of popular characters, comparing their similarities in order to create a new “parallel universe” where the artist can alter the functions of the characters, using the symbol as a path between the image and the object.

Artist Workshop – Emily Floyd– ACCA

Working in sculpture, installation, printmaking and public art, Emily Floyd is renowned for her text-based sculptures and pedagogically inspired works that combine formal concerns with an interest in the legacies of modernism. Her work engages a wide range of disciplines and endeavours including public art and social activism, design and typography, literature and cultural studies, community participation and public education, and various political ideologies. Intersecting public space with carefully considered design, the artist creates bold spaces for public engagement and interaction.

Exploring HTC Vive & Tilt Brush and Its Classroom Applications – Meg Kingwell – ACMI Studio One

A passionate user of technology in the classroom, Meg Kingwell is introducing the Victorian Curriculum F-10 Digital Technologies curriculum as a specialist subject in Hallam Primary School’s Design Space, a specifically equipped technology space. Meg works with a range of technology including 3D printers, NAO Humanoid Robots and VR systems, including Tilt Brush. She is focussed on instilling in students the confidence to explore possibilities that we are yet to imagine.

Hermès at Work – Miranda Samuels – Melbourne Town Hall

Miranda Samuels is a Sydney based art educator with experience researching, designing and facilitating education programs for a range of cultural institutions within community, state and commercial contexts.

Download the 2018 Program Guide