This weekend RMIT hosted Art Education Victoria’s Re-assemble Art Education Conference

This weekend RMIT hosted Art Education Victoria’s Re-assemble Art Education Conference. As part of this conference there were workshops in painting, ceramics, gold & silversmithing, video/projections textiles, drawing & photography. Iy was great present a workshop on staged photography to art teachers. I developed a class teaching plan around Staged Photography & the Tableau, aimed at year 9 & 10 students, scalable to year 11 or 12. My Desk is a simple activity that invites students to ‘re-create’ their desk...or another personal space from their home or room. Initially the project asks the students to be observational and document the space. They are then asked to select or ‘edit down’ the important aspects to recreate or re-stage the scene in the
classroom. In addition to selecting the crucial elements you can encourage them to consider the lighting, how is the scene lit? Desk lamp, window...this can be done be examining the images they make at home.

In keeping with the lesson plan, I asked my 14 year old, year 9 daughter to document her space with a view to re-staging it in ‘classroom’ (or studio in this case). I wanted to not only demonstrate the idea and technical aspects but also the level of student engagement (she thought it was interesting and fun)