This year’s theme for Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori is language of the environment. We explore the exhibitions Waking Up Slowly: Elizabeth Thomson and Len Lye plus Yuichiro Tamura: Milky Mountain.

Students combine art and Te Reo Māori, imagination and nature, to create a mask that transforms them into one of Aotearoa’s creatures.

Connects with Puke Ariki’s Ngā Kūkūwai o Taranaki/Taranaki Wetlands and Ngā Kōrero Mō Te Mounga education programmes

http://pukeariki.com/Learning-Research/Education/Wetlands

At school

Start your search for kupu linked to the environment at https://www.doc.govt.nz/get-involved/conservation-education/resources/kia-kaha-te-reo-taiao-posters-and-booklet/

Write a poem that includes te reo

Find out about special features of Aotearoa’s indigenous creatures including the Tuatara’s third eye

Use your mask for drama or dance

Have a sense day focusing on one particular sense

Get inspired by Waking Up Slowly: Elizabeth Thomson and Len Lye to create individual and group movements with a ‘growth’ theme. Float like a cell, divide and multiply through space, express the life cycle of a bug. BYO your class ipad or phone to photo students’ moves.

Connects with Puke Ariki’s Ngā Kūkūwai o Taranaki/Taranaki Wetlands and Ngā Kōrero Mō Te Mounga education programmes

http://pukeariki.com/Learning-Research/Education/Wetlands

At school

Rework your dance moves to tell a story about a natural environment near school

Create an artwork that shows metamorphosis

How do things grow?

How can we use nature to inspire our art? We tour Waking Up Slowly: Elizabeth Thomson and Len Lye to learn how artists combine research with imagination to create new possibilities. Looking closely at nature big and small we discover the patterns and structures beneath the surface. In the studio students create a painting that contrasts scale, opaque and transparent, 2D and 3D.

At school

Collect images from ‘under the microscope’ to inspire more art and questions

Experiment with using paint in new ways

Discuss a variety of understandings of where life came from

What lives on you?

We use Yuichiro Tamura: Milky Mountain to investigate hidden messages and myths in comics, movies and other mass media. Students experiment with collage and cartooning techniques to create a graphic novel page showing the real them and what they stand for.

At school

How do comics tell a story?

What is popular culture?

Why have super heroes?

Compare super heroes – old/new, male/female, different cultures, etc

How might digital technologies change reality?

What’s good about going to the movies?

Identify and analyse stereotypes used in advertising

What can we learn from Len Lye? Experience the multi-sensory exhibitions through interactive activities adaptable to your students’ learning needs and level. Find out how Len Lye came up with ideas and why his art is special. Then create your own Len Lye inspired artwork. See Len Lye: Art That Moves and Waking Up Slowly: Elizabeth Thomson and Len Lye for exhibition information.

Find out about Len Lye at www.govettbrewster.com/lenlye

We tour Len Lye: Art That Moves, Waking Up Slowly: Elizabeth Thomson and Len Lye and Mikala Dwyer: Earthcraft focusing on how to get ideas. We discover the problems Len Lye overcame when constructing sculpture then activate our own creativity and problem solving skills. In the Learning Centre students experiment with materials, movement and light to invent a structure that is evidence of a creative mind.
This lesson links with Puke Ariki’s Creativity and innovation education programme.
BYO your class ipad or phone to photo students’ designs.

At school

Talk about how and why people get creative

What are some Taranaki examples of problem solving?

List ways traditional Māori used technology?

Make a sense trail around your classroom

Discover how old school animation works and give it a go. What makes Len Lye’s films still cool today? We go to the flicks, viewing Len Lye’s abstract films to discover how image, movement and sound are combined to create an illusion. Students analyse animation techniques and use gallery zoetropes (animation viewing devices) to create their own moving image. BYO your class video camera, phone or ipad to record students’ animations.

At school

View Len Lye’s films online or the Colour Box DVD available from the Govett-Brewster Shop or loan from the Gallery educators.

Download the Len Lye: Abstract Animation resource here.