VISUAL ARTS

2025 ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: A Journey into Culture and Creativity with Uncle Mark Brown

The Visual Arts department warmly welcomes Bunurong Elder and multi-disciplinary Artist Uncle Mark Brown to our school community as our 2025 Artist in Residence. Uncle Mark opened Dreaming Spirit Gallery in Moorabbin earlier this year, realising his vision for a creative cultural hub for Mob and allies to reflect, listen, learn, and walk together. Dreaming Spirit Gallery* honours the depth and diversity of Aboriginal culture and celebrates Aboriginal Art and storytelling.

The McKinnon Artist in Residence program, now in its third year, has taken a new direction with a design-focused residency. Past residencies include mural collaborations "A Frolic in the mind's garden" (East Campus 2023) with the late Anthony Breslin and "Walking in two worlds" (McKinnon Road Campus 2024) with Trawlaway Plemiernier Bunurong Artist and respected community Elder, Aunty Heather Kennedy.

Over the next two weeks, Uncle Mark will be working directly with Year 8 students in their scheduled VCD classes to consolidate their understanding of culture and creativity in both a spiritual and commercial context. He will share cultural knowledge and his personal artistic practice with students to develop their understanding of Bunurong Community and reflect on their own identity or life story. A key focus of the residency is the collaboration between the artist and students. Working with Uncle Mark, students will develop personal icons for use in their Kummargee T-Shirt design and as a contribution to a repeat surface graphic for McKinnon.

Uncle Mark's residency is designed to achieve three key goals, deeply embedded within our curriculum.

Sharing Cultural Knowledge and Artistic Practice: Uncle Mark will work directly with our Year 8 and Year 11 VCD students to share cultural knowledge and his personal artistic practice. This will help them develop a deeper understanding of the Bunurong Community and reflect on their own identity or life story. Students will be creating personal icons for their Kummargee T-shirt designs, which will also contribute to a collective repeat surface graphic for the school.
Developing Resources for Meaningful Curriculum: In collaboration with our Visual Arts staff, Uncle Mark will help develop resources to embed Indigenous perspectives into our middle and senior-level curriculum. By consulting on Victorian Curriculum 2.0 and VCAA guidelines, he'll ensure that the Year 8 Kummargee Design Task and the Year 11 VCD Cultural Ownership Task foster a deep and authentic appreciation for the histories, practices, and foundational contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to Australian design identity.
Modeling Culturally Appropriate Design Practices: The residency will serve as a case study for the entire college community on respectful and appropriate representations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. By documenting the repeat surface graphic project, we will highlight the importance of ethical collaboration and the application of protocols for the creation and commercial use of Indigenous knowledge, such as those outlined in the Australian Indigenous Design Charter.

Included as part of sharing his knowledge and culture, Uncle Mark has graciously offered to share some of his design work for student use, consolidating their understanding of cultural intellectual property and copyright law through practice.

This valuable experience will contribute to the respectful partnership and continued enrichment, forged through authentic connections, made between Indigenous peoples and the McKinnon community.

To find out more about Dreaming Spirit Gallery, please visit Dreaming Spirit Gallery and Dreaming Spirit Design Store

PERKINS FAMILY DONATION: ART, DESIGN AND MEDIA LIBRARY

Towards the end of Term 2, Year 12 Art Captains Delilah Vlasak-Galante and Radhe Shah met with McKinnon parent Milan Perkins to receive a donation of high-quality Art and Design books. The selection of mostly new books (from their previous shop Handworks on Chapel Street) was carefully curated from the art library of his parents, Robert and Ivana.

Robert Henry Perkins (OAM), is a production designer and painter and Ivana Mary Perkins (1947-2024) was a prolific Sculptor and Metalsmith. Her work is still installed at the IBM headquarters in Darling Harbour - a fountain surrounded by Brolgas. The family donated the titles, valued at over $2000, in the hopes of inspiring future generations of young artists at McKinnon.

Year 7 Art Club members worked with our Art Technician Leisa Hunt, to sort the books into categories and created labels which were lovingly glued into the front of each book.

‘We are really pleased that the books have gone to such a great place and will become part of the McKinnon resources for the Art and Media departments. Enjoy these excellent books and keep on creating.’ - Milan Perkins

WORKS IN PROGRESS GALLERY

Take a moment to enjoy some of the wonderful artwork our students are creating. From sketches to colourful masterpieces, these pieces showcase imagination, skill, and the joy of artistic expression in progress.

Jessica Rogosic

Acting Head of Visual Arts

YEAR 8 VCD KUMMARGEE DESIGN CHALLENGE

This semester the Visual Communication Design students have been working on making a t-shirt design for the Kummargee challenge. On Thursday 28 August, Uncle Mark Brown came to our school to talk to us about cultural ownership in Design usage without permission. He explained the impact of using Aboriginal symbols without permission from traditional owners has on entire communities, not just the person who created the design.

There is no way to properly trademark or patent Aboriginal symbols as they belong to a whole culture, not an individual. Uncle Mark suggested ways we could take inspiration from Aboriginal Art and symbols, make them our own and give them new meaning. Throughout the next few days, Uncle Mark came into our Design classes, giving us valuable advice on how to make our designs our own and was kind enough to let us use some of his beautiful designs in our Kummargee work.

Integrating our cultural heritage with Indigenous designs provided by Uncle Mark, has allowed us to take ownership of the task and infuse some of our story into each design, creating a partnership between traditional owners and the next generation.

As part of the design challenge, we have documented our use of the design process in our visual diary. Researching flora and fauna, generating different designs and developing two preferred concepts has led us to the current stage, working in ProCreate on the iPad to refine and create a final surface design for a Kummargee T-shirt.

This experience was highly valuable for all students and has taught us the importance of respecting Aboriginal culture and how we can incorporate it into our own work in a respectful way. Collaborating with Uncle Mark has allowed for a truly cross-cultural experience for all Design students.

Iliana Gabriel, Year 8

McKINNON MEDIA NIGHT 2025

The Visual Arts team is excited to announce that on Thursday 9 October, we will be hosting our annual McKinnon Media Night - a celebration of creativity, storytelling, and student achievement.

Often described as our very own Academy Awards, the evening will showcase the incredible talent of our Years 11 & 12 Media students. Guests can look forward to an inspiring display of print productions, including magazines, picture story books, and photography, as well as screenings of short films and music videos.

Our students have worked tirelessly over the past few months to bring their projects to life, and this is their moment to shine.

Event Details

When: Thursday 9 October
Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm (screening begins promptly at 5:30pm)
Where: McKinnon Road Alan Lawrence Theatre

Adding to the excitement, we are thrilled to welcome back alumni from the Class of 2024, who will return to judge the awards for Best Film and Best Print/Photography Production.

This special evening is not only a chance to support our current students but also a wonderful opportunity for anyone considering Media as part of their future studies, at school or beyond.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Anna Bourke and Eliza Portelli

Media Teachers

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN: TEXTILES

In keeping with their unit on Fast Fashion, Year 10 Design students went on an op-shopping excursion earlier this term. Provided with a $10 budget, students walked to Centre Road in Bentleigh to scan the racks for garments they could upcycle into sustainable design solutions.

They are busy working through the design process, sketching, drafting patterns and learning applique and stitch techniques to give each purchase a new lease of life. We can’t wait for you to see the finished products at our Senior Art Show on Thursday 6 November 2025!

Mrs Tina Alesi and Ms Popi Roumeliotis

Art Teachers

Our recent trip to the op-shop was a valuable and eye-opening experience for all design tech students. Walking in the sun and engaging in happy conversations with my peers was a truly beneficial experience. In the op-shops, we explored how second-hand materials can be repurposed, redesigned, and reimagined, highlighting the importance of sustainability and responsible waste management in fashion design.

The excursion stimulated our creative thinking, encouraged ethical design choices, and emphasised the positive impact design can have on both the environment and the whole community.

Ciara Tarasiuk, Year 10