The Aboriginal Artists in School (AAIS) program is a community cultural development program which aims to establish longer-term and sustainable connections between Aboriginal artists/cultural practitioners and local SA schools.
The program provides professional learning for Aboriginal artists, teachers and learning outcomes for students through an artist in residence model.
We are pleased to announce that we will be a part of the program delivered by Carclew Aboriginal artists and will be focussed on the Narungga Dreaming story, Bruthera’s Rock. Clem Newchurch and Janet Milera will be the two Narungga artists working intensively with our students in Years 5/6 and Year 7 in Week 7 & 8. Janet is the lead artist and Clem the emerging artist who will both be mentored by Cedric Varcoe who visited the SAASTA team earlier this year to share his art and support our students creating their own art piece. The team will be creating a mural on the walls under the primary cover way near the canteen which will have pride of place at Central Yorke School.
CYS Professional development
On Tuesday 20th October the Carclew team delivered a professional learning session for our staff. Bethany Ashley-Ward, Manager of the Arts Program provided the staff an overview and history of the program. Kaine Sultan-Babij, Project Officer of the Arts Program and former Bangarra Dance Theatre dancer, assisted and provided a break in between with taking our staff through a short Aboriginal dance workshop to get them up and moving.
The two artists, Clem and Janet shared their story about their life and in particular their journey as an artist and their strong connection to Narungga culture and country. Clem taught the staff the traditional way to make string that would then be used for making fishing nets.
This is a cultural activity that Clem will be teaching our students. Janet also shared a cultural activity which was making garrdi (emu) wands and sharing her strong connection to the garrdi.
Overall a deadly professional learning session that staff really enjoyed and were talking about for days. We are all definitely looking forward to Clem and Janet being a part of our school in Week 7 & 8.