Education

To book lessons, arrange tours or simply find out what the Gallery can offer your school, contact our education and learning specialist:

Bianca van Leeuwen
+64-3-9417386 or +64-27-2940137
schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz

We run education programmes for schools. Let us help your class discover art with hands on learning experiences based on our exhibitions and works in our collection.

Our education programmes offer students first-hand experience with real works of art whilst developing their creative and critical thinking skills. We make links across the New Zealand curriculum as well as provide students with great opportunities to develop key competencies in a social context. Discussions and activities can be adapted to suit all levels.

Gallery tours and visits are free.

Lessons take 90 – 120 minutes, involve a hands-on activity and cost $2 per student.
Bookings are essential. Our programmes are popular and we can only teach one class at a time. So get in early.

To book lessons, arrange tours or simply find out what the Gallery can offer your school, contact our education and learning specialist, Bianca van Leeuwen:
+64-3-9417386 or +64-27-2940137

schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz

Installation view of Povi Christkeke by Michel Tuffery 1999

PROGRAMME

Select a programme for more information on our art lessons.

All year
All Levels
The Zine Maker: Reimaging NZ Histories Through Zinester Eyes
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Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 36 students students

What happens when we widen our gaze beyond conventional art narratives, and what part does bravery play making art? Zine making is one way to challenge some of the traditional ideas that we apply to art. Many artists who make zines take risks – either because their work is very personal, deals with contentious issues, or says things in a new way. Students will reimagine the narrative of one of the works in the Gallery and reinvent it in a zine to take away. 

Samuel Butler Portrait of John Marshman (detail)1861. Oil on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1996

Samuel Butler Portrait of John Marshman (detail)1861. Oil on canvas. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1996

All Levels
Activities and Resources
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Lesson time: as long as you like!

Class Limit: any students

Looking for things to do at home or school? Take a look at these worksheets and activities.

Art Gallery Explorer Cards
Pacific Printmaking

He Waka Eke Noa
Waka Huia

Explore our set of colouring activities based on works from our collection - check them out here

Have a go at curating your own exhibition with the works in our collection using My Gallery 

We would love to see your work when it's done - take a photo and send it to schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz or tag us on social media!

Geoff Dixon Blue globe / Big ark 1998. Mixed media. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1999. Reproduced courtesy the artist

Geoff Dixon Blue globe / Big ark 1998. Mixed media. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1999. Reproduced courtesy the artist

All Levels
Self-guided Tours
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Lesson time: as long as you like!

Class Limit: any students

Our lessons often book up fast but you are always welcome to bring your students on a self-guided tour of the Gallery. We have a wonderful resources for the Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania exhibition which you can use to guide your students through the spaces. Check out all of our current exhibitions here

Please ensure you go over the Gallery Guidelines with your students so that they are aware of expectations in the Gallery spaces.

Email schools@christchurchartgallery.org.nz and let us know when to expect you. so we are able manage any clashes with events and other tours. 

All Levels
Guided Tours
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Lesson time: 30-60 minutes

Class Limit: 25 students

Students will take away an appreciation of art and consider a selection works that can cover a range of subjects, styles, media and purposes. The works viewed will be a selection from our current exhibitions. Students are expected to discuss and question what they see. Tours can be tailored to all levels.

Bookings essential.

Download our Gallery Guidelines below.

Download PDF
Students on a guided tour of the Gallery

Students on a guided tour of the Gallery

Years 0 – 6
Junior Map Makers
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Lesson time: 90 Minutes

Class Limit: 36 students

Explore the Gallery with your students, discuss a range of artists’ work and explore ideas of navigation, belonging, identity and how we are connected across time and place. During the guided tour students will use signs and symbols to create a pictorial map of their own identity and journey through the Gallery which they will then complete using watercolour and pastel in our Education Centre. A great lesson for preschoolers and junior primary students!

Maungarongo Te Kawa Rangi Takere Hau 2022. Mixed media quilt. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2022

Maungarongo Te Kawa Rangi Takere Hau 2022. Mixed media quilt. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2022

Term 1
All Levels
Soft Sculpture
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  • Key Competencies
  • New Zealand histories

Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 36 students students

Explore personal and collective histories, relationships to the environment, transitions between places and across time through textiles and moving image. Students will take a guided tour of selected works in Spring Time is Heart-break and Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection before heading to our classroom to make a three-dimensional sculpture of their own to take back to school.

Ilish Thomas Indira’s Birthday (ઇિન્દરાનો જન્મિદવસ) (still) 2022. Single-channel digital video. Courtesy of the artist

Ilish Thomas Indira’s Birthday (ઇિન્દરાનો જન્મિદવસ) (still) 2022. Single-channel digital video. Courtesy of the artist

Years 11-13
Top Art Exhibition: 3-17 April
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Lesson time: TBC

Class Limit: TBC students

Top Art is an annual touring exhibition featuring a selection of the NCEA Level 3 portfolios that achieved Excellence in Visual Art in the previous year. Five streams are covered: design, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture.

Top Art provides an opportunity for secondary students and teachers to gain an understanding of what is required to achieve Excellence at Level 3. It also allows members of the public to see the high quality art being created in schools.

This year the exhibition will be held in the Education Centre at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū from 3-17 April

Book in a time for your class to visit – email Bianca van Leeuwen

To find out more visit - 

NZQA Top Art Page 

Top Art Facebook Page 

Lana Bonnett, Rangiora High School, Pandemic

Lana Bonnett, Rangiora High School, Pandemic

Term 1 and 2
All Levels
Maureen Lander: Aho Marama Strings of Light
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Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 20 students students

Come and experience Maureen Lander’s magical UV light installation in Perilous with your class. Students will discuss how Lander has brought together different art forms and histories, from Māori string games to conceptual art before heading back to the classroom to create their own sculptural string  performance using IMovie and a green screen.

Available until 14 July

Maureen Lander Wai o te Marama 2004, Harakeke, muka, nylon line, fluorescent paint, UV lighting. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2021. Photo: Ellie Smith

Maureen Lander Wai o te Marama 2004, Harakeke, muka, nylon line, fluorescent paint, UV lighting. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2021. Photo: Ellie Smith

All Levels
What is Painting?!!
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  • Understanding art in context
  • Communicating and interpreting
  • Developing ideas
  • Developing practical knowledge
  • Key Competencies
  • New Zealand histories
  • Participating and contributing
  • Thinking
  • Managing self
  • Symbols and text
  • Relating to others
  • Using language

Lesson time: 90

Class Limit: 36 students

Come and explore what painting can be with your class. No one experiences art – or anything else – in the same way because we are all individuals. Who we are determines what we make and see. Artists like Miranda Parkes explore connections between our histories and futures, creating new languages and ways of seeing, and uncovering the unexpected through recycling, reusing and rewriting. Students will take a guided tour through Perlious: Unheard Stories from the Collection to discover how artworks can be made up of layers of stories and of materials alike. They will then take these ideas back into the classroom to make their own collage to take away.

Available until 21 July

Miranda Parkes Etc (Exploded book: French Painting) 2020 Gold and Silver foil, collage elements, acrylic, varnish onphotogravure book plate.Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2021

Miranda Parkes Etc (Exploded book: French Painting) 2020 Gold and Silver foil, collage elements, acrylic, varnish onphotogravure book plate.Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 2021

Year 3 and up
Shape Up
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Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 36 students

Take a guided tour of selected works in Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection and examine how artists use colour, space, form and pattern to activate the eye. During the tour students will make recordings to use in the Education Centre where they will create an abstract work of art to take back to school.

Available until 21 July

Bridget Riley Cosmos (detail) 2017. Acrylic. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. Acquired through the Christchurch Art Gallery Foundation with the generous help of Heather Boock; Ros Burdon; Kate Burtt; Nicki Carter; Dame Jenny Gibbs; Ann de Lambert and daughters, Sarah, Elizabeth, Diana, and Rachel; Barbara, Lady Stewart; Gabrielle Tasman; Jenny Todd; Nicky Wagner; and the Wellington Women’s Group (est. 1974)

Bridget Riley Cosmos (detail) 2017. Acrylic. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. Acquired through the Christchurch Art Gallery Foundation with the generous help of Heather Boock; Ros Burdon; Kate Burtt; Nicki Carter; Dame Jenny Gibbs; Ann de Lambert and daughters, Sarah, Elizabeth, Diana, and Rachel; Barbara, Lady Stewart; Gabrielle Tasman; Jenny Todd; Nicky Wagner; and the Wellington Women’s Group (est. 1974)

Term 2 and 3
All Levels
Cora-Allan: Encountering Aotearoa
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Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 36 students students

In this major body of new work, Cora-Allan (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Tumutumu, Niue – Liku, Alofi) reflects on her recent two-week voyage by sea around Aotearoa, from the bottom of Te Waipounamu to Te Tai Tokerau in the north. Using whenua-pigment, hiapo, and other resources from the ngahere, she documented the shapes and views of the whenua of Aotearoa from the perspective of the moana. Cora-Allan's work responds to the legacy of colonial mapping and recording practices, and early encounters between Māori and Pākehā. Students will explore this exhibition on a guided tour before creating their own mixed media work in our classroom to take back to school.

Cora-Allan Ōtautahi (Christchurch) from the series While at sea 2023. Whenua, kāpia ink, hiapo, brass. Courtesy of the artist.

Cora-Allan Ōtautahi (Christchurch) from the series While at sea 2023. Whenua, kāpia ink, hiapo, brass. Courtesy of the artist.

All Levels
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the Hills
+ Description

Lesson time: 90 minutes

Class Limit: 36 students students

Across five decades, Ngāpuhi, Te Roroa and Ngāti Kahu artist Marilynn Webb (NZOM) dedicated herself to making art concerned with the relationships between land, sky and water. Students will participate in a guided tour of this major survey exhibition before taking part in a practical workshop in our classroom, creating a mixed media work to take back to school.

Available 8 June - 13 October

Marilynn Webb Cloud Landscape 2 (detail) 1973. Linoleum engraving. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1973 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society

Marilynn Webb Cloud Landscape 2 (detail) 1973. Linoleum engraving. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 1973 with funds from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society

Education partner