Access an array of education kits designed to support teachers with activities and assessment tasks for students to complete independently online. Resources include video lectures, interactive slideshows, virtual tours, teacher guides and assessment tasks. The kits contain material that is useful for teachers to introduce students to a range of challenging subjects and activities that improve visual literacy.
Slideshows
Australian Histories
The slideshow commences with ancient Aboriginal rock art and early colonialists' interpretations of their surroundings, and moves on to outline the formation of an Australian identity through art, the shock of early modernism and an emerging sense of what it means to be a multicultural nation. A major emphasis is placed on the art of the past fifty years, when both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian art have received widespread international acclaim. 120 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
Dreams and Realities
A look at art history’s iconic depictions of dreams, recognising that dreaming has been an ubiquitous feature of ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary art. Dreams provide an experimental space where the mind can undergo changes to the underlying categorical structure of the imagination. Through this process, the mind experiences a restructuring that updates one’s mode of being in the world. The dream represents the first stage in an attempt to contend with the unknown.54 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
Seeing Ourselves
This slideshow assists students in developing an awareness of how each individual percieves and interprets art and life in their own unique way. The visual presentation features a careful selection of artworks that draw our attention to the act of looking, to the inner-gaze in self-portraiture and reflects on contemporary artworks that function like a metaphorical mirror, revealing more about the viewer than intentions of the artist. 28 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
Guerilla Art and Cultural Jamming
“Culture jamming” refers to an array of tactics deployed by artist-activists to critique, subvert, and otherwise “jam” the workings of consumer culture. Ranging from media hoaxes and advertising parodies to flash mobs and street art, these actions seek to interrupt the flow of dominant, capitalistic messages that permeate our daily lives.50 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
Art and Politics
This slideshow engages political, epistemological and ethical themes in contemporary art. The experience of art can be political to the extent that an artwork can represent social issues such as racial differentiation, the transgression of gender roles, sexual preference and political persuasion. Through close examinations of selected texts, exhibitions, and artworks, we engage with a set of concepts and concerns that have shaped the discourse around cultural production in recent decades. Rather than presenting a comprehensive survey, the lecture involves intensive investigation of certain key positions and debates and their relevance for thinking about artistic practice today.48 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
Ratios, Composition and Mathematics in Art
Art history has been indebted to the wisdom of STEM subjects, particularly evident in the influence of mathematical principles like the golden ratio in constructing the overall composition of a painting or sculpture. This slideshow features works by Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Michaelangelo, Georges Seurat, Cezanne, Gauguin, Malevich, and Pollock who have all employed the golden ratio technique or other sophisticated mathematical formulae in the composition of their artwork.65 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
Education Packs
Ways of Looking
This series examines different ways of looking at art, distinguishing between traditional, modern and contemporary modes of locating meaning in the experience of art. When we talk about meaning in art, we often consider the subject matter of an artwork. Today, many contemporary artworks become meaningful in subjective ways. This means that rather than the subject of an artwork being contained in the art object, the viewer’s experience, perspective and unique interpretation become the subject.4 x 45 minute lectures (.mp4); 4 x artwork slideshows (.ppt/.pdf)
History of Representations of Fear
A two-part online performance piece tracing the history of representations of fear in art from the Lascaux caves to today. Performed in front of a green screen with captured footage inserted over images/videos of iconic artworks, the online presentation features a video artwork animating unconventional narratives from art history. The linear narrative of art history offers an anchor to an otherwise disorienting, dreamlike sequence of movement through caves, burial chambers, catacombs, temples, palaces, museums and public spaces.2 x 45 minute video presentations (.mp4); 65 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
History of Representations of Masculinities
This video presentation and education kit examines different notions of masculinity, explores global gender relations, new theories on what it means to be a man, the politics of masculinities, and the implications of masculinity research for understanding current world issues. Artworks have traditionally contributed to the forming of the masculine as a social construct through representing traits and qualities that were valued or vilified in different cultures and during different historical periods. 90 minute lecture (.mp4); 65 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
History of Representations of Sexuality
Sexuality has been a recurrent subject in the history of art since the beginning of known representations. This video presentation and education kit explores the ways in which the body is psychically, socially, sexually, discursively and representationally produced, and the ways, in turn, bodies reinscribe and project themselves onto their sociocultural environment so that the environment both produces and reflects the form and interests of the body. 90 minute lecture (.mp4); 65 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
History of Representations of Madness
While much in the history of “madness” has changed over time, one of the most consistent—yet sometimes overlooked—features of that history has been the presence of the visual arts. Dating back to ancient times, observers have attempted to understand and communicate the meaning of madness through attempting to visually represent the external signs of mental illness, and the internal realities of those who are considered to be mad. This video presentation and education kit surveys a long history of representing madness in art and offers students an opportunity to reflect on the problems associated with such a tradition.90 minute lecture (.mp4); 65 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
History of Representations of Humour
The history of representations of humour in visual culture offers important insights into the social and cultural developments of the past. This video presentation sets out to explore the terra incognita of humour through the ages - from jokes and stage humour in Greece and Rome to the jestbooks of early modern Europe, from practical jokes in Renaissance Italy to comic painting during the Dutch Golden Age, from Bakhtin's conception of laughter to the joking relationships of anthropologists.90 minute lecture (.mp4); 65 artwork slideshow (.ppt/.pdf); Resource for teachers (.pdf); Interactive Assessment Task (.pdf/.html)
