"Creating New Worlds with Sculpture and Installation" with the artist Yuk King Tan was a two-day workshop designed for senior secondary school and tertiary level students interested in design and visual contemporary art.

Yuk King Tan is currently a lecturer in the sculpture Department of Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, teaching from second year to master's levels. She is also a well-known practising artist who has had six solo exhibitions as well as being part of group exhibitions that have led her to travel widely across the globe.

The students were six and seventh formers from various secondary schools and first, second, and third years from the Petone campus of WelTec. Students attended this workshop using it as a chance to show their artistic ability and extend their skills in contemporary art and they also use this as a chance to talk to someone who has successfully made it into the world of art. This was a workshop set to bring inspiration and open mindedness to our future New Zealand artists.

The first day of the workshop consisted of discussion about what each student thought was "good" art, and brainstorming what students were planning to create. It was anonymously decided that they would work as a group although their final creation would also contain individual components from each of them. The main theme of the ideas brainstormed was Utopia, or the perfect society of New Zealand. Each student was encouraged to create a part of Utopian society as they wished to interpret it. Some also portrayed the opposite of Utopia, Dystopia. The final creation would be displayed in Courtenay Central alongside the Time-based Art Exhibition.

On the second day the time was mostly taken up by creating their installations but also had slides and a video of Yuk King Tan's works that she has created over a number of years. The students saw it as a challenge to create a piece of art in only a couple of hours and a few mentioned that "it was just like being back at kindy",when it came to using string and coloured paper and feathers, kindly provided for us by the Wellington City Gallery in Civic Square. The ideas in the final works ranged from beauty to being turned upside down, mutated and dying. A number of their works were created inside an unused bar fridge, giving the idea of freezing time.

When the artwork was finished and on display, it was discussed and documented, giving the students a taste of what it was like to produce and exhibit artwork in the professional artistic world.

On Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 of August, Ian McMinn held workshops on Stage Management. This three-hour workshop ran from 1:30pm until 4:30pm each day and was available to students who were at an intermediate to advanced level of stage management ability. It was held at Capital E's exhibition floor.

Mr McMinn is an experienced theatre practitioner and has been working as a professional theatre technician and stage manager for forty years. The aim of the workshop was to share his knowledge to those who were keen to further their knowledge on the art of stage management. The participants attended with the aim of stepping outside the square of their current knowledge on how to create a stage production. They had all been part of productions and wanted to take a different perspective, not being on stage, but behind the scenes in order to make the show work.

The stage management work shop was largely a discussion workshop and students learnt how to develop working lists of requirements for props, wardrobe, lighting, sound and scenery, the production script, rehearsals, production week, and running the show.

Stage management can lead to careers paid and unpaid, although many stage managers are freelance taking part in amateur societies. A variation can be the floor managers that work in television and can lead to careers overseas rather than New Zealand.

This workshop would have been a large stepping-stone for those aiming for a career in stage management in the future.