Education
To book lessons, arrange tours or simply find out what the Gallery can offer your school, contact our education and learning specialist:
Bianca van Leeuwen
+64-3-9417386 or +64-27-2940137
schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz
We run education programmes for schools. Let us help your class discover art with hands on learning experiences based on our exhibitions and works in our collection.
Our education programmes offer students first-hand experience with real works of art whilst developing their creative and critical thinking skills. We make links across the New Zealand curriculum as well as provide students with great opportunities to develop key competencies in a social context. Discussions and activities can be adapted to suit all levels.
Gallery tours and visits are free.
Lessons take 90 – 120 minutes, involve a hands-on activity and cost $2 per student.
Bookings are essential. Our programmes are popular and we can only teach one class at a time. So get in early.
To book lessons, arrange tours or simply find out what the Gallery can offer your school, contact our education and learning specialist, Bianca van Leeuwen:
+64-3-9417386 or +64-27-2940137
Installation view of Povi Christkeke by Michel Tuffery 1999
PROGRAMME
Select a programme for more information on our art lessons.
Lesson time: as long as you like!
Class Limit: any students
Our lessons often book up fast but you are always welcome to bring your students on a self-guided tour of the Gallery. We have a wonderful resources for the Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania exhibition which you can use to guide your students through the spaces. Check out all of our current exhibitions here.
Please ensure you go over the Gallery Guidelines with your students so that they are aware of expectations in the Gallery spaces.
Email schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz and let us know when to expect you. so we are able manage any clashes with events and other tours.
Lesson time: 30-60 minutes
Class Limit: 25 students
Students will take away an appreciation of art and consider a selection works that can cover a range of subjects, styles, media and purposes. The works viewed will be a selection from our current exhibitions. Students are expected to discuss and question what they see. Tours can be tailored to all levels.
Bookings essential.
Download our Gallery Guidelines below.
Download PDF
Students on a guided tour of the Gallery
Lesson time: as long as you like!
Class Limit: any students
Looking for things to do at home or school? Take a look at these worksheets and activities.
Art Gallery Explorer Cards
Pacific Printmaking
He Waka Eke Noa
Waka Huia
Explore our set of colouring activities based on works from our collection - check them out here.
Have a go at curating your own exhibition with the works in our collection using My Gallery
We would love to see your work when it's done - take a photo and send it to schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz or tag us on social media!
Geoff Dixon Blue globe / Big ark 1998. Mixed media. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1999. Reproduced courtesy the artist
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 36 students students
What happens when we widen our gaze beyond conventional art narratives, and what part does bravery play in making art? Zine making is one way to challenge some of the traditional ideas that we apply to art. Many artists who make zines take risks – either because their work is very personal, deals with contentious issues, or says things in a new way. Students will reimagine the narrative of one of the works in the Gallery and reinvent it in a zine to take away.
Ivy Fife Royal Visit 1954. Oil on board. Christchurch Art Gallery Foundation Collection, purchased 1996
Lesson time: 90 Minutes
Class Limit: 36 students
Explore the Gallery with your students, discuss a range of artists’ work and explore ideas of navigation, belonging, identity and how we are connected across time and place. During the guided tour students will use signs and symbols to create a pictorial map of their own identity and journey through the Gallery which they will then complete using watercolour and pastel in our Education Centre. A great lesson for preschoolers and junior primary students!
Simon Kaan Te Au 2023. Ink and oil on board. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2023
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 36 students
Across five decades, Ngāpuhi, Te Roroa and Ngāti Kahu artist Marilynn Webb (NZOM) dedicated herself to making art concerned with the relationships between land, sky and water. Students will participate in a guided tour of this major survey exhibition before taking part in a practical workshop in our classroom, creating a mixed media print to take back to school.
Available 8 June - 13 October
Marilynn Webb Cloud Landscape 2 (detail) 1973. Linoleum engraving. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1973 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society
Lesson time: 105 min
Class Limit: 36 students
Take a guided tour of From Here on the Ground and learn about twentieth-century Aotearoa New Zealand artists exploring urban, suburban and industrial landscapes. Students will discuss perspective, colour theory and why artists are drawn to these landscapes, before creating their own painting in the education centre using the Gallery windows as a framing device.
Available 18 May – 17 November
Louise Henderson Manchester Street, Christchurch c. 1933. Oil on board. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Dame Louise Henderson Collection, presented by the McKegg Family, 1999
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 36 students
Transformation, unpredictability and magic happen when unrelated worlds meet in this strange, luminous exhibition by artistic collaborators Victoria Edwards and Ina Johann. Students will take a guided tour of the exhibition before exploring creative play and collaboration in a fun hands-on workshop in our education centre.
Available until 9 February 2025
Edwards + Johann Concretions – pink 2020. Mixed media on c-type photograph. Courtesy of the artists
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 36 students
Have you ever wanted to be someone else? This unforgettable selection of sculpture, video, photography and more reveals how borrowed or re-imagined identities can help us explore what it means to be human. Students will take a guided tour of Dummies & Doppelgängers before creating their own sculptural alter-ego in the education centre.
Available 2 November until 23 March 2025
Amanda Newall Blue Ted 2022. Faux fur, stuffing, velveteen, plastic eyes and nose, plastic tube. Collection of the artist
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 36 students
Students will consider how artists use their making to reflect on what is happening in the world around them and as a voice for change during a guided tour of He Kapuka Oneone—A Handful of Soil. In the Education Centre students will create a flag which is their own call to action about something that is important to them.
Emily Karaka Matukutūruru 2015. Oil on kauri board. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2022
Lesson time: 90 minutes
Class Limit: 36 students
Take a guided tour through He Kapuka Oneone—A Handful of Soil, which explores the relationship between tākata and whenua – people and land – through Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history. Students will think about identity, place, history and belonging in Aotearoa before creating an artwork inspired by their own name in the Education Centre.
John Bevan Ford Spöring’s View of Motuaro (from the Endeavour, 1769) 1992. Ink on paper. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1992
Lesson time: 10am-2pm
Class Limit: 16 students
Professional Development for Teachers with Edwards + Johann
Tuesday 1 October 2024, 10am – 2pm
$50pp / Lunch Provided
An exciting opportunity to explore creative play and collaboration with artistic collaborators Victoria Edwards and Ina Johann. Build your confidence and consider different ways of approaching art making and using materials with your students in this fun, hands-on workshop.
Bookings essential: schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz
Edwards + Johann Geomorphic Conversation #2 2020-3. Partially hand-coloured photograph. Courtesy of the artists