MRAG Maitland Regional Art Gallery

Karuah Public School visit to MRAG 2009

Coordinated school visits to MRAG (paid)

The secret of a good school visit to MRAG is our belief in a strong emphasis on play and connecting to the lived experiences of children. MRAG education can create for school students of any age artistic and expressive school visits in connection with the current exhibition or suited to your specific needs. There really is no typical MRAG school visit. Students have found themselves exploring wide ranges of artmaking activities as well as imagining, designing, even acting out their artistic ideas. For a full day visit, four workshops are prepared in connection with the conceptual theme or medium explored in the current exhibition. The students are split into four groups travel around in a ‘round robin’ format to each of the workshops over the course of a school day.

Each workshop is designed with the students’ age or skill level in mind. A workshop is usually 25-40 minutes and the artmaking activity designed enables each child to have a finished work of art completed by the end of the session. In workshops in the past, students in years 4-6 created 3D collage photographs using materials like fabric, oil pastels, glitter, cellophane, buttons, even sand. Other conceptual based workshops ask students to explore the ideas that are present in the works on exhibition. In one workshop, students from years k-6 acted out their interpretation of the titles of artworks.

The cost is structured around how many casual gallery educators it will take to staff the day, but on average, early childhood centres will visit the gallery for a little over an hour at a cost of $4.40 per student. Primary and secondary students can visit the gallery for a little over two hours at $5.50 per student.

For more information, contact Lauren van Katwyk, Education Curator

laurenv@maitland.nsw.gov.au

(02) 4934 9858