Exploring the MCA
On Wednesday the 5 September, the Visual Arts faculty participated and explored the Museum of Contemporary Art, Circular Quay.
Year 8 Xhibit 2 and Year 11 and 12 Visual Arts students were fortunate to examine contemporary artworks and connect with Artist Educators.
The day gave students opportunities to deconstruct artworks and experiment in artmaking workshops to unleash
new ways of looking, thinking and creating.
During our tour they were inspired by contemporary artists and their works. One particular Chinese artist was Sun Xun (b.1980 Fuxin, lives and works Beijing) who creatively blends traditional artmaking techniques with new media in his work to create hybrid forms. Using a wide array of styles and materials, the artist is best known for his surreal animations using 2D and 3D film technologies that are made up of thousands of ink paintings, drawings and woodcuts. Sun Xun’s hand-made films combine image, sound and text to raise questions about what we perceive as truth and explore his personal experiences of China’s history, culture and politics. One of his amazing artworks, titled Maniac Universe 2018, is an enormous painting of symbolic mystical creatures that are over 40 metres in length, painted on handmade mulberry bark paper with glow-in-the-dark pigment that is lit by ultraviolent light in the gallery. Students were inspired by his artistic practice and enjoyed exploring and discussing his work.
Followed by the curatorial tour of the museum, Year 8 Xhibit 2 ventured off to their first workshop to discover new and expressive ways in creating Bodies of Work, focussing on people’s perspective on life. They discussed what idyllic and dystopian landscapes would appeal to them. Interestingly there were many different responses such as environmental pollution, war, living without a family, social equality, disforestation, peace on earth and many other good answers. One important thing that was discovered is that people have their own opinions of what they want in their vision of utopia and dystopia. During the course of the workshop students had to think how the future could impact on their lives by drawing what humans would look like - some ideas were people with large deformed heads, some being mermaids or hybrids and others with robotic parts. After viewing Sun Xun’s stop-motion 3D video, it was Year 8 Xhibit 2’s turn to get creative once again by making stop motion animations.
The key aspect of the excursion was to explore and discover what contemporary art is like now and how it is displayed in its own special way. It was also about learning to visually read and deconstruct artworks and being able to look for signs and symbols and use descriptive language to explain the meaning behind them. More significantly, students discovered that contemporary artworks are culturally diverse and provide an opportunity for all to reflect on issues that are important to people and the world around us.
Ti’anna Nualsaengsy - Year 8 Xhibit It!
Mrs Verter - Head Teacher, Creative & Performing Arts