TKI - Visual Arts - The Art Auctions

Exciting journey

The fourth artist residency, involving every child in the school, represents a new direction in the overall arts programme.

The Art Trust decided to continue with the idea of funding partnerships, combined with a sideways move into the broader arts arena of the performing arts – music, dance, drama, writing, and story-telling.

As a result, a funding partnership has been established between the Trust, the school, and a variety of local businesses. A seeding fund of $12 000 is being sought, which it is hoped will bring writers and performing artists, including musicians, into the non specialist classrooms of Macandrew Intermediate.

Looking back

"Looking through the four volumes of photographs and press cuttings that have accumulated over the last 11 years, I can count well over 75 artists that we have worked with, and eight art auctions we have hosted," Lesley Hirst muses.

"That first auction was an exciting and nerve-racking event for the organisers and artists alike. Without realising it, we had kick-started something big – something very big! Something that, over time, was to affect a change in the whole culture of our school."

"It seemed, perhaps, that art was worth doing, worth taking seriously. It could motivate, inspire, and be a rich and fertile source of learning for children! We were at the start of a long and exciting journey, a journey that continues today, a journey that – even more excitingly – doesn't have an ending."

Catalyst for culture change

"The auctions have been a catalyst for a change in the culture of the school – the visual arts are seen as worthwhile and serious, a way of motivating and inspiring children, and a rich source of learning."

"As the school embarks upon our wider Arts initiative, we will encounter new roads that will lead to new places as yet unvisited. That same raft of dedicated teachers, artists, board members, and the Dunedin arts community are devoting time and energy to networking, organising, planning and supporting this larger venture."

"The classroom is the focus, and the passion comes from the team of teachers and the trust board, who are committed to the provision of a rich, quality education through the arts."

"We believe that the arts provide a space and a place where the world can be made real – a wonderfully open-ended place, where young people can learn about themselves, find and explore their own way of saying things, and build self-worth, self-knowledge, and self-confidence. A place where – importantly – they can be themselves."

"An OK place, surely – and that is why we do it."

Further information

To find out more about the Artists in Schools project in general, go to www.artistsinschool.ac.nz. For protocols about engaging artists to work in schools, go to http://www.artistsinschools.ac.nz/html/support.php.