B.

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.

We'll be offering these as soon as we re-open!

Each year the star cluster Matariki disappears from our skies in May. This year it returns between 13 and 20 July.

This marks the start of the Māori New Year, a time to celebrate and come together with whānau, friends and communities. It’s when we maumahara (remember) the people who came before us and when we share knowledge, traditions and skills through wānanga (learning).  It is a time to have fun and celebrate with a hākari (feast) and look forward to the year ahead. 

Canterbury Museum, the Airforce Museum of New Zealand, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, the International Antarctic Centre and South Canterbury Museum have joined together to give you a variety of activities to complete. Follow the links, gather your whānau and friends and have some fun celebrating Matariki together.

Click here for more information and links to activities!

Looking for things to do while you're stuck at home? Take a look at these worksheets and activities.

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!

Students will take a tour of Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania and explore a range of Polynesian art including woodblock, Tivaevae and Tapa. During the tour they will be asked make recordings of patterns and motifs used in the work they see. They will use their drawings to create their own Polynesian print. Students will be working individually and in groups during this lesson.

Available from 1 June 2020.

Take a guided tour of our exhibition Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania. Students will discuss a range of artists work and explore ideas of navigation, belonging, identity and how we are connected across time and place. In the education centre students will use Ani O'Neill's work 'etu iti as inspiration to create their own star out of a range of materials to add to a collaborative work for your classroom.

Available from 1 June 2020.

Take a self-guided tour of our exhibition Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania. Student workbooks are available to support students while they explore the spaces - download a copy below or email schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz to organise a printed class set.

All About Te Wheke

Wheke means octopus in te reo Māori. For many cultures around Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa / the Pacific Ocean, this resourceful, resilient, adventurous creature is a symbol of early voyages of exploration and migration from the Polynesian homelands of Hawaiki. Its long tentacles stretch out across the ocean to Tonga, Kiribati, Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Aotearoa New Zealand. In this selection of art from the Gallery collection and beyond, Te Wheke offers a way to understand how we are connected across time and place.

In Aotearoa, conventional art history tells the stories of art that ties us to Britain and Europe. The art in Te Wheke looks in a different direction – from the Pacific outwards. Artists reach back to Polynesia and out into the world beyond, finding connections that are old and new.

Oceania is large and glorious. Like the octopus, it connects us along Pacific pathways with ideas of navigation, belonging and identity. Te Wheke opens up conversations about the journeys, tensions and connections that shape our past, present and future.

Discover the bold, expressive works of Max Gimblett in Ocean Wheel: Max Gimblett. During a tour of the exhibition, students will think about different ways of making and the use of colour and gesture in Gimblett's work. In the education centre, students are then challenged to think creatively while exploring the elements of art and properties of ink by creating a series of ink drawings using a range of tools and techniques.

Available from 31 July - 15 November 2020

Experience Dane Mitchell's Post Hoc with your students on a guided tour. Post Hoc was part of the NZ Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale and explores countless phenomena that existed, such as languages, borders, species and eras, but are now lost. The phenomena are broadcast across the Christchurch CBD via three, six-metre tall cellphone tree towers through an automated voice in an echo-free chamber inside the Gallery.

Available 31 July - 1 November

Your students will tour the Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania and look at a range of artworks that feature Māori motif and design. In the classroom, students will learn four common shapes used in Kowhaiwhai and learn how the shapes are used. The class will use these shapes to create a cut-out design based on Lonnie Hutchinson's work Sista7. 

Available from 1 June 2020.

Students will explore Louise Henderson: From Life, an exhibition which was jointly developed by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. Your class will take a journey through Henderson's seven-decade career discovering her bold, colourful observations of life and nature. They will discuss her use of colour and painting techniques and observe how her painting evolved over time. In the Education Centre, students will create their own abstract work of art to keep.

Available from 27 June until 11 October 2020.

Students will tour Gathering Clouds and explore how and why artists have painted the skies. They will discuss painting techniques and elements of art such as composition, colour, texture and balance. This tour will be followed by a lesson in the education centre in which students will learn a range of tips and tricks with paint before creating their own dramatic sky-scape to keep.

Available until 6 September 2020