Over the years Calamvale has consistently had outstanding art exhibitions for the college community; has participated in group exhibitions with other schools as part of Artwaves and Creative Generation exhibitions; and had featured exhibitions in Logan Art Gallery – but this year was the first year that senior art students, enrolled in the IBDP, had their own exclusive exhibition out in the community: at the Sunnybank Multicultural Gallery.
The exhibition received enthusiastic praise from not only parents, teachers and gallery staff; but also from members of the broader community who left heartfelt feedback in the gallery visitors book and also went out of their way to contact the college to let us know how impressed they were with the students work. The public was so impressed with the work that there have been inquiries into purchasing the works from the students.
The partnership with the Sunnybank Multicultural Gallery, Sunnybank Shopping Centre and ‘Experience Sunnybank’, is fitting given our students diverse backgrounds, and the “global mindedness” focus of the International Baccalaureate Diploma program. The visual art course in particular requires students to consider the function and purpose of artworks within the cultural context of which they were created. With assessment components particularly structured to force students to research and investigate art works and art history from multiple cultural contexts.
The privilege of participating in the Multicultural Gallery exhibition program was given to us by World Arts and Multi-Culture Inc. who, in the past, have blessed the College with amazing opportunities such as international artists coming and working with our students in a variety of media over the years. This new gallery provides the opportunity to easily access, locally, rich artistic and cultural heritage from cultures represented in our community, which reinforces to students the legitimacy and richness of their individual cultural backgrounds, and helps them to find how they fit within these contexts.
The student artworks, which were on display for a month, showcased a broad range of artistic practices. The course that the students are undertaking is inquiry based – with students investigating not only personal themes, but also diverse traditions of art practice – and is focused on developing the students into individual art practitioner: into artists – not just students of art. As many contemporary artists do, the students have begun to blend and transgress media boundaries – incorporating traditional and established artistic techniques such as Chiaroscuro; impasto; screen-printing and eco-dying with Australian native flora and iron mordants – but also using recycled media, burning, videography, digital drawing and audience interaction. As you can imagine, an art teacher cannot be an expert on so many varied artistic approaches – so the exhibition is a testament to the inquiring nature of the students – learning techniques and processes themselves as part of an authentic artistic process.
The students chose the theme “Progress” because they are in this time of transition: moving from childhood into adulthood; progressing from an identity formed by their family and cultural heritage, to discovering their own identity and position within multiple cultures and contexts; and all too soon for the year 12s: progressing from secondary school to tertiary and beyond… finding their place within the broader world.
The students may still be works in progress… but they proved in this exhibition, that they are artists in their own right.