Museums & Galleries Qld

On Saturday I headed to AGNSW to attend the Easter School Holiday Program run by the Art Gallery Members Society. These programs are co-ordinated and delivered through the Members Society not through the AGNSW Public Programs or Education staff, with the express purpose of raising funds to acquire works for AGNSW. When people join the Gallery they become automatic members and activities for children are offered once a month, with 11 classes in a year. Families can receive one free workshop if they book their children in for all 11 sessions. Activities are offered for 3 different age groups over an hour and a half with up to 15 children taken in each session.

Activities also differ from the Gallery’s holiday programs for the public in that they focus on works from the permanent collection (with the exception of touring exhibitions such as the recent one on Picasso – which of course was too good an opportunity to pass up).

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Friday was a day to explore surrounding Galleries and Museums to gain an overview of their public programs and educational opportunities. After checking maps and websites we made a shortlist of 4 venues to visit and the best route to get round them all. Read the rest of this entry »

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As Day Three at the Gallery dawned, Nicole and I attended the one hour Aboriginal Tour led by a Volunteer Adult Guide. We were walked through the Yiribana Gallery (meaning the Way Ahead) which contains Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander works from the 1950s through to present day. The group consisted of 12 people ranging from a French Nun right through to babies. The guide discussed the meanings of the works, the landscape that had inspired the artists and the spiritual connections to the land. Tony Albert’s artwork titled Hunter was extremely striking. This artwork consisted of a range of curiosity items collected by Tony. The objects dated back to the 1930s and 1940s and were created by non Indigenous Australians for the purpose of ornaments and decorations. A cleverly placed face of an alien amongst the objects showed the viewer how much of an alien the artist feels.

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Sydney has turned chilly but it doesn’t seem to have stopped the droves of people from coming to the Gallery. Eager children gathered inside the Gallery waiting to attend the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prize School Holiday Workshop.

The workshop consisted of an educational tour involving discussion of works in the exhibition followed by a practical component. 20 children were supervised by the two educators running the workshop and 2 volunteer guides. Lisbeth and Rachael invited the children to sit in front of one of the final entries and expertly led a conversation between the children helping the group to read the visual cues, reinforcing what they had learnt and building on their knowledge. By the third artwork children were confidently sharing their thoughts and answering questions. The practical component involved the children making their own self-portrait using oil pastels and watercolour on canvas, followed by a discussion on what they had created.

Families could then attend People and Portraits, a free event held in the open space between the entrance and the restaurant. David Legge, a well known children’s illustrator discussed how to draw a face in different poses whilst demonstrating on an easel. Children and adults could follow along using paper and pencils provided. This event was run in support of the Archibald Prize Exhibition and proved very popular. Read the rest of this entry »

DAY One: Children on Easter holidays arrived at Art Gallery New South Wales (AGNSW) excited to attend a free performance in the Gallery. No words were uttered by the performers for 30 minutes yet the audience was completely enthralled. Using mime, magic and humour the 2 presenters engaged with the audience using props and costuming to tell the stories of works from the Gallery’s new contemporary Gallery. This was the first public program I attended at AGNSW today as part of my Mentorship program which will focus on the education and public programs.

I met with Nicole Tan who works at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and is here for 3 weeks in a similar capacity. Nicole was successful in an application with SAM to attend AGNSW for a mentorship opportunity, which stemmed from a previous visit to SAM by a senior AGNSW staff member. Nicole and I spent the day together and it was wonderful to chat with someone else from another cultural organisation to hear about how their facility operates.

Alex Gregg, the Co-ordinator of Contemporary Programs, discussed the process undertaken to develop an iPad App for some of the 250 works donated to AGNSW by John Kaldor, that are now housed in the John Kaldor Family Gallery, that was opened last May – as far as they know this is the first Collection App that has been designed in Australia

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