Art & Technology Showcase

The 2023 Art and Tech Showcase was a major success this year, with dozens of classes visiting our Gallery to view and vote througout the week, and seeing over 100 people join us for our Presentation Evening on Thu 16 Nov.

Classes and staff were invited to head through the showcase from Mon 13 to Thu 16 November to vote on the works they liked the best. The coloured dots used to vote, filled the vote boards so quickly that we had to keep adding more throughout the week! These votes along with our Digital Showcase (found here) votes were added together to decide our winners. 

The Mad Hatter themed evening had a very entertaining start with Mr Murphy and Mr Lewis pulling off an incredible magic trick to decide our Door Prize winner.  With the People’s Choice voting under way, guests interacted with media displays and everyone’s too the time to cast their eyes over every detail of the incredible displayed work.

We were honoured to have Shirley Dougan  from the Ferntree Gully Arts Society (and The Hut Gallery) deliver another great speech in which she expressed how much she loves to see the support our school offers the Art & Technology students in showcasing their work at events like ours, and the incredible set of skills all our students display. 

Following this strong positive start, we got straight into the awards for the evening. Each year we announce 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed winners for each subject per year level. This year the Awards were designed by our students, Yini and Charlotte, and then laser cut by our Learning Area Leader, Claire Baillie. 

The Art and Tech Showcase was such a success, I loved seeing all the amazing artworks and created by our students. I loved seeing the reactions from the families that came along, my favourite part was definitely getting to taste everyone's delicious cakes. They were all so tasty! - Charlotte

Each Award is named after someone or something that is important or influential in the area. Here are the Awards and Recipients:

Media - ‘The Cate Shortland Award’

Cate Shortland is a famous Australian Director and has made history as Marvel’s first female solo director. She is an accomplished screenwriter, film and television director and a television writer. The recipient of this award is in recognition of a student who has applied themselves to all areas of the media arts.

Year 11: 

Jeremy Coath, Ash Orpwood, Ruby Lord

Year 12:

Gen Howard, Harry Williams, Lily Newton

Visual Communication - ‘The Roy Grounds Award’ 

Sir Roy Grounds is one of Australia’s most prominent architects of the modern movement. Grounds’ designs were always considered radically modern and further established his reputation by designing the National Gallery of Victoria, the Arts Centre, and the entrance and library to the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania. The recipient of this award is in recognition of a student who’s creative problem-solving ability and technical competencies within Visual Communication Design displays a strong understanding to visually communicate ideas and concepts to an audience.

Year 11: 

Catilin Murphy, Jackson Bertram, Zad Day

Year 12: 

Shelby Nation-Bates, Gavin Qi, Lorraine Legaspi

Art: Making and Exhibiting - ‘The Da Vinci Award’ 

The Renaissance paved the way for polymaths and there is no greater example than Leonardo Da Vinci. A polymath is a person that is highly competent within a range of different domains who can then translate and integrate this information to become more effective within their core field. Da Vinci is renowned as much for his inventions as his works of art. The recipient of this award is in recognition of a student who skilfully utilises their individual Studio Process, drawing on their personal and artistic influences, to explore and develop a range of artworks.

Year 11:

Felicity McNaught, Ruby Lord, Jess Huljak

Year 12: Rory Clarke, Shelby Nation-Bates, Amber Holloway

Systems Engineering - ‘The S.T.A.R.K Award’ 

Science, Technology and Research Knowledge are heavily relied upon to progress society. The Marvel Universe is no different, as it presents Tony Stark as the scientific genius behind The Avengers. The recipient of this award is in recognition of a student that critically and creatively applies their knowledge within the field of systems engineering to produce work that may one day, in a similar fashion to Tony Stark, enhance and improve the way we use technology.

Year 11: 

Tony Nyugen & Phoenix Rigano, Isaac Paulger & Zac Small, Fletch Sims

Year 12: 

Liana Tanser, Lyndon Joy, Deshlyn Moodley

Product Design - ‘The Charles Eames Award’ and ‘The Ray Eames Award’ 

Charles and Ray Eames are among the most important American designers of the 20th Century. The Eames’s are best known for their ground-breaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing, and the photographic arts. The recipient of this award is in recognition of a student, who like the Eames’s, have utilised their technical competencies and skill in the design of their creative products.

Year 11 Wood:

Dayle, Mitch, Luca & Lachlan - Chess Table Large

Cam, Aaron & Harry - Table Tennis Table

Will, Josh, John, Aidan - Monopoly Table

Year 12 Wood: 

Sam Kimpton, Jake McMillan, Jayden Furletti

Year 12 Textiles: 

Lily Newton, Candice Goodyer-Scott

Applied Computing - ‘The Love Lace Award’ 

Ada Lovelace was widely known as a Mathematician and Writer who was often referred to as ‘The First Programmer’. She is considered the first person to recognize that computers had a much larger potential than mathematical calculation. The recipient of this award is in recognition of a student who has been able to look further than generic code to create an outstanding digital concept and executed their envisioned coding outcome.

Year 11:

Reagan, Kate & Alex

Davey, Logan & Devlin

Nathan, Luca & Morgan

People’s Choice - ‘The Bob Ross Award’ 

Given to the person who the attendees of the presentation evening deem to have created the best work. 

Bob Ross’ positivity made him a global icon. His popularity is based on positively engaging with his wider audience through his unforgettable and wholesome quotes as well as his skill within the arts. Fittingly this year’s Bob Ross award went to Felicity McNaught, who’s Bob Ross inspired paintings of life before and after pollution.

After our Subject Award proceedings, we moved swiftly onto our Bake Off Award winners before everyone got too cold. Congratulations to Courtney Malloy and their Mum for winning our Community Category, Lydia Thomas and Tahlia Sunderman for winning the Student Category and Michael Bellm for winning the Staff Category. Congratulations to these winners and we thank everyone who entered. 

This year we had a smaller runway lineup than usual but Mrs Baillie’s giant hat, Ms Manser’s Tutu, Lily Newton’s dress worn by Abi Burke and Lily Evans' flowery masterpiece was a highlight of the evening. All student and staff who went down the runway put on an incredible show, with a special Year 8 addition from Gabi Leitch and Chelsea Turner who put on an incredible duo walk, wearing Gabi’s crocheted jumpers. 

We had such a successful evening, which couldn’t have ended any better than everyone eating and taking the bake off cakes home. We wouldn’t have been able to put on such an incredible event, and display the talents of students at Wantirna College without the generous support of the following sponsors:

• Barry Plant Wantirna
• Costco Ringwood
• Sports Co Eastland
• Schokolade Café
• Officeworks Vermont
• Bunnings Vermont

We would also like to thank those who assisted us to install and dismantle the Showcase, you are all legends and know who you are. 

Lastly, we would like to thank Yang, our incredible curator, who had a vision of this year’s event and turned drawings into what everyone saw on the evening. Yang is incredibly talented and we would not have been able to pull this off without her! 

We are looking forward to being bigger and better next year! Keep an eye out for what we have planned!!

Amber Thomson 

Art and Tech Showcase Organiser 

Follow us on Instagram: 

@wantirnacollege_artsandtech