This Wellington class had many interesting ‘outside the classroom’ experiences this term!

They visited the Supreme Court and our local Arapaki Library, planted pots of winter salad with Beka Whale from Growers of Wellington and recently went on an outing to the Wellington City Art Gallery.

Caleb Gordon, Public Programmes Coordinator, invited the ESOL Intensive class for a tour of an exhibition called Every Artist which was a presentation about art history.

The exhibits and their stories were varied and interesting; ranging from a Playstation football game with teams of artists, to huge canvases covered in artists’ names which resulted from conversations between artists and Māori artists represented as respected saints to elevate their status as artists. As the gallery website says, ‘Every Artist is an exhibition of local, national, and international artists who rethink, remap, queer, and even gamify the history of art—often by subverting the tools of art history (maps, charts, diagrams, books, the biopic). This is art history as fodder for art making, not the other way round.’

We’re looking forward to liaising with Caleb again on more tours as it is such a good opportunity to explore Wellington’s art space.

Learners’ comments show the impact this exhibition had:

This is my first time to come in a gallery and I love the Māori art.

When I visited the City Gallery, I see lots of art from life so I understand the art is not inscrutable, the art can come from life.

I enjoyed some arts, especially I like Māori artist’s picture.

I like pictures that are made by painting tempura on canvas. I saw a beautiful Māori art painting in the city gallery.

I really like the Māori woman art pictures. I think she wants to give a balanced view of Māori artists. This trip was unexpected for me!