Creatives converge for three-day extravaganza

The atrium of the University’s B201 was colourfully abuzz over three days in early September with 220 leading teaching artists who work in communities globally to improve social justice and equity.

Hosted by the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation (CAST), the seventh International Teaching Artist Conference (ITAC7) saw creative educators from across Aotearoa, the Pacific and as far afield as Nigeria, Finland and Venezuela gather to share ideas and inspire each other.

Centre co-director Professor Peter O’Connor says the whole thing was an extraordinary experience.

“The opening powhiri at Waipapa Marae was an intensely beautiful experience held at the same time as the burial of Kiingi Tuheitia, which set an emotional intensity that flowed into the making and sharing of arts practice that brought B201 to life, so it was full of the joy of the arts.”

He says central to the conference was the idea that the future of learning is indeed AI.

“But not artificial intelligence, rather the ancestral information that has always been transmitted through the arts.”
 

The conference attracted more than 80 Indigenous artists who talked about how knowledge is shared and carried across generations through mediums like dance, storytelling, music, art and craft.

“We were reminded by Indigenous artists across the Pacific curated by Lagi Mama, [a cultural organisation based in Aotearoa focused on promoting Indigenous knowledge] and Cree artists from the Calgary Arts Commons, of the power of the arts when they are deeply connected to the land they originate from,” says O’Connor.

CAST co-director, Professor Selina Tusitala Marsh, herself a notable poet and author, says the conference was blessed with some wonderful, interactive art sessions.

“Led by PhD student Priya Gain from Education and Social Work’s Te Puna Wananga and her roopu from the Far North, Tai Orooro Tai Auaha, we were offered full-day workshops in the newly reestablished Nga Tauira Marae on City Campus."

Marsh says the support of Pro Vice-Chancellor Māori, Professor Te Kawahau Hoskins, in bringing this to the conference was vital to its success.

“And what a joy it was to see the house activated to host people from around the world learning how te ao Māori understands the arts as being central to education.”

Among the many sessions on offer, a Squiggla booth, a creative mark-making programme that encourages people to have fun drawing dots and lines on paper in a free-flowing way, was set up in the atrium, courtesy of the Chartwell Trust.

The Trust supports the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation and ITAC7 as part of its celebration of 50 years of commitment to the visual arts.