Nature Listening

Available: 4 April - 11 October 2026
Curriculum links: Imagine & create / Sustainable futures: Empowering young people/ Kaitiakitanga & Te Taiao
Year Level: 1 - 6
Duration: 90 Mins

What is nature saying?

In this engaging workshop students explore sound as a messenger, combining careful listening with imagination to capture sound through hands-on mark making. Following, a sensory rich introduction to selected artworks from Direct Bodily Empathy – Sound, Signal, Feedback, ākonga will create their own response through gestures, and symbols as they investigate how to give te taiao a voice. This lesson places the creative process at the centre, encouraging experimentation, curiosity, and embodied learning. 

In our learning centre, students will transform their ideas into a montage using rau (leaf) and rākau rubbed textures, along with sound marks that show which creatures are allowed or not allowed inside a predator-proof fenced ngahere. This process works towards bringing our ancient forests back to life.

Simon Ingram, Vibrating World: Rotokare Forest, 39.45254˚ S, 174.41727 ˚ E, 2026. two-channel video, surround sound, duration variable. © Simon Ingram, courtesy Gow Langsford, Auckland.