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I attended the Zart conference day 2.
It was wonderfully enriching to be surrounded by other art educators as it always is.
Highlights included Jasmine crisps drawing workshop. She was incredibly open, generous and wise. The simplicity but considered nature of the approaches to the 3 drawings activities left me feeling so inspired.
Hearing Peter speak so frankly about the state of the education system and the way art can be so powerful
In the space was validating and affirming

REFLECTION ON KEYNOTE ADDRESS by MARIKIT SANTIAGO

I found the artist’s explanations of her process and influences fascinating, particularly her discussion of her installations. She uses second hand, discarded mannequins, covered in packaging tape to reference moving, relocation and also the victims of war in the Phillipines, whose heads were bound in packing tape. She is interested in exploring how we perceive value and when items have religious reverence placed upon them. Her installation works are impressive in their intertwined and complex themes.
Santiago’s paintings that explore her multi-cultural identity, religious iconography and her experiences in motherhood were especially impactful. I thought it was so interesting that she felt most comfortable in her body when pregnant, that she loved herself the most in this state. The use of her old wedding dress in a sculptural work – how it was folded and scrunched, with paper materials added resulted in perhaps my favourite work. Here again, she explored the value of items. The wedding dress, traditionally such an important symbol, combined with disposable items. What a statement!
Also very interesting is her habit of discarding works. Her entire practice seems to embrace this notion of playing with the temporal nature of things, such as how she now chooses to paint exclusively on cardboard. She is not concerned with the conservation of her work; she wants it seen now.

Grateful for the 2 Day Zart workshop with fellow AENT members. Day 1 ink explorations were interesting and a challenge which I will further explore. The supplies were a treat also! The Day 2 Guest Speaker Peter O’Connor was brilliant, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable and poignant. The colour pencil workshop with Jasmine Crisp was fun, relaxing and exploring different spontaneous techniques with the lovely tools an enjoyable session also. The encouragement, techniques and helpful tips is something that we can all use in our art practices and classrooms. Thanks AENT for this opportunity.

Marikit Santiago’s Keynote was the highlight for me on day 1. Her energy and the way she incorporates her role as a mother into that of being an artist rather than having those as separate. We have a larger number of Philipino students who I think would relate well with Marikit’s art and her cultural perspectives.
I enjoyed Fiona McMonagle’s portrait workshop, mostly just using the different types of watercolour papers and just allowing ourselves to play. The ZART conference is a fabulous collaborative experience and a good excuse to get Territory Art Educators together and sharing practice.

This was my time attending the Zart Conference. I was inspired by the artistic journey taken by keynote speaker Marikit Santiago. I admired her honesty and vulnerability as she revealed some of her early works, and spoke of the financial challenges of being an artist in Australia. I think including her children as co-creators of her artworks is an innovative (and brave) move. Day 1 closing address by Daniel Browning got me thinking about gaze and power. I aim to include some of his chosen artworks in my future 5/6 program. I confess to a mini crush on Prof Peter O’Connor as he spoke about imagination and the importance of ‘keeping it warm’ as children grow and move through the education system. I even wrote him an email to thank him for his address and to invite him to speak at a conference in Darwin sometime . (I was so excited to receive his reply the next day!)
I enjoyed the wearable art workshop delivered by Tania (although I still need more practice with gel plate printing). I will be incorporating ideas and techniques used by Francesca in her soft sculpture workshop. I’d never considered using textas or watercolours on fabric. They are so vibrant and accessible.

Thank you once again to AENT for supporting us to attend this always inspiring annual event!

My overall takeaway was the wealth of references to learn more about, from Peter O’Connor and Daniel Browning – exciting.
“When we think, feel and embody other possibilities we can imagine ways to change our world for the better”.
Peter’s work really resonates with how I initially got into teaching and reminded me of the IBO ethos of education, (where I started my teaching career) and that there was nothing stopping me from working these concepts into my current classes. It is so important that students learn to see multiple perspectives on any single topic. I missed quite a bit of Peter’s presentation due to connectivity issues – if anyone has some notes they could share with me of people and topics he mentioned, I would be most grateful!

Daniel very articulately spoke about issues that would resonate with many of my students.
It was a reminder to use artists and artworks in my English teaching as well to create a space for my students to present their own voice in their writing and artwork.
I am going to more consciously provide a space for my students to comment on the spaces they occupy and create spaces that they can occupy

From the 2nd day’s closing speakers my takeaways were:
• ideas for EAL/D speaking – poetry slams
• Autonomy, competence and belonging: foster students to answer these things about themselves
• Explore these guest artists’ work and use in my teaching
• Representing diversity in our teaching content
• A place for every story and a story for every place

Workshops:
1) Re-thinking the portrait: Fiona McMonagle | Re thinking the portrait
Ink is a medium I love to work with. This session really inspired me to go back to it and to also use it more with my students and allow them to explore it’s possibilities. Currently in line with my own goals of animating drawings with students. Will need to explore her work.
2) Kirthana Selvaraj: Figurative Expressions.
A wonderful experience of using water-based oils for the first time and enjoying the simple pleasures of just painting. A wonderful medium I can use with my EAl/D students and self-portraits being a constructive context to set goals, self-esteem and develop literacy.
Unfortunately, I was at work and missed actually doing most of the practical, but I am determined to do the activities in the holidays.
I am going to paint these holidays! 😊 (teaching English for the last two years, I haven’t done as much as I would have like to)

My conference standout was definitely Peter O’Connor. I have recommended him to others and will rewatch his keynote. I loved his philosophy that students need us to teach Empathy and Hopefulness. In our current world this is needed more than anything. He spoke of how this has the potential to be the antidote to war. Peter’s passion for the role of the Arts is so important and the power of engagement, problem solving, critical thinking, and creativity the arts provides is essential. His exercises around imagination I found inspiring and thought provoking.
One of the practical workshops I will take into my teaching practice was Kirthana Selvaraj: Figurative Expressions. I didn’t realise it was oil painting which generally I am not a fan of, but I really enjoyed it. The limited colour palette was great as we literally made our own black! It made me see that this is possible in the classroom, as I have some yr 9 painters I would like to extend with this medium. The process reminded me of Wayne Thiebaud using blues as shadows. I was surprised how well the oils blended and I expected it to be a much slower process, I didn’t think this could be completed in an hour.
Of course catching up with everyone was great and responding to the keynote’s together was so much more rewarding than if you did it at home alone.

I attended Day 1 of the Zart Conference at Dripstone Middle School. The paper clay trophy making session with Bonnie Hislop was a highlight and a great introduction to working with this material. Her works are inspiring and the idea of creating trophies to celebrate everyday achievements is especially fun and relatable to all students.Of course it’s always nice to catch up with other art educators and to relocate for a day.

The day started with an inspirational talk by Marikit Santiago. She shared a candid account of her studio practice and connection to culture. She stated, “Work is more powerful when it comes from a personal space.” Marikit described her painting collaboration with her children, “Their voices are important”. I observed how they applied line patterns to her paintings and would like to create a student group shape and pattern project. The ink portrait workshop with Fiona was enjoyable playing with the unpredictable inks. She described many ways of working with inks and the importance of having a solid drawing as a starting point.

What a fantastic conference. I got lots out of this and will definitely try and come again next year.
My biggest take-away today is from Harriet Body’s workshop, Practice, Practice and that is that I can say ” I am an artist.” I am a busy working mum with three children who all play sport and do extra curricular activities. So don’t find that much time to Practice. I often struggle with the notion of “If you don’t practice you are not an artist.” But after listening to Harriet’s views on conceptual art and the view that teaching is art. I can shout out that “I am an Artist.” I sew, I Knit, I draw, I paint, I collect, I choreograph, I plan, I design, I do stop motion, I sculpt, I do photography , I screen print but the process that takes most my time and what I find to be most passionate about is the art of teaching. Thanks Harriet for allowing me to call myself an artist.
I really enjoyed Peter O’Conner and resonated with the views about imagination.
1. It is the bridge between the past and the future.
2. Without imagination there is no future.
3. The space in between imagination and knowing is where the rich learning happens.
4. Imagination sits at the center of Hope.
5.Imagination is to see ourselves as others, Empathy.
I will take to my classroom lots of activities that I have learnt. I will also try and do a PD for the other teachers and get them to either do an embroidery classroom or a classroom trophy.