The 2023 Future Pathways Art and Design Tour is an experience where students who are embarking on Year 12 Art or Design subjects in 2024 are able to experience the next step in their schooling and career options.
We began the study tour at Swinburne University. We met Dr Jo Kuys, Course Director of Bachelor of Industrial Design, who brought us on a tour of the Industrial Design building. She showed us all sorts of machines the students have access to, from resin curing to collaborative robots. Carey alum Zoe explained the Design Factory Global Network, a global network for students who love collaborating. On occasion, there is a livestream of students from all around the world, living and studying. It was a fascinating insight into the design industries and workshops at Swinburne.
We jumped back on the bus and headed to Monash University, specifically MUMA, the Monash University Museum of Arts. They hold four exhibitions a year, showing collaborative, contemporary artworks from an extensive range of artists each time. We experienced the gallery together and did a visual thinking strategies conversation. This consisted of a process of unpacking a smaller series of artworks within the gallery to create a conversation around it as well as discussing motifs and materials that help to explain the main ideas behind it. We then moved into the hands-on activity with Dion and Jean. In groups, we created artwork with an amalgamation of the first letters of our names. Monash is a place all about collaboration and trying many different Art and Design practices.
We then headed off to the NGV for a look around current exhibitions. Following this exhibition, we headed to the Quincy Hotel Melbourne. This was an Art Deco, funky, relaxing hotel where we stayed in for the night. We had a quick dinner at Blue Train for a delicious mixture of cuisines before heading off to our evening theatre experience to see Mamma Mia!.
On our final day of the tour, we had breakfast at the café connected to the hotel and we headed to LCI. The building was originally a clothing factory, while the university itself started in Canada, Montreal. We completed a Digital imaging workshop with Professor Dean and undertook design thinking tasks. A quote that stuck with many students from the LCI workshops was, ‘If you find something you like, you don’t have to be perfect, that’s why we are here to help you and support you in your future career.’
After grabbing lunch, the tour headed to the RMIT Gallery to see a past students’ exhibition where the gallery curator assisted with an art appreciation task. To finish the Art and Design Tour, we headed to Blender Studios. Doyle, an exciting and bubbly artist who predominantly works with spray paint, ran this tour. He took us on a tour of the studios and informed us of the artist’s stories and pieces. After the tour, we did a spray-painting activity. Doyle instructed us on how to properly use a spray can and use templates to create our pieces. This was the perfect way to finish the tour.
A big thank you to Mr Peter Schmidli and Miss Georgia McClure for supporting all students over the two-day tour. The Art and Design tour was an experience that is strongly recommended. Students gained an extensive understanding of their choices for Year 12 and moving forward after school and saw how the environments related to these careers function. Overall, this experience has opened many students’ eyes to a whole world of creativity that they hadn’t explored yet.
Written by Year 11 Art and Design students and Simon Carver – Leader of Learning – Art and Design
