Kiwi learners to explore New Zealand artwork at the Venice Biennale through digital resource

16 June 2017

Secondary art and social sciences students can explore contemporary New Zealand Māori artist Lisa Reihana’s work through a new digital learning resource.

Launched today, the digital resource has been designed by Te Papa to support classroom learning through exploring New Zealand’s participation at the international art exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale), the world's largest and most prestigious international contemporary art exhibition.

Te Papa’s Head of Learning Innovation, Miri Young, says the digital learning resource will provide students and teachers the opportunity to explore Reihana’s work as well as the history of New Zealand artists exhibiting on the world art stage.

“Lisa Reihana’s work is incredibly rich and will inspire learning across diverse themes including representation and identity, time and change, and historic and contemporary perspectives on the Pacific”.

“Reihana is an important contemporary Māori artist who regularly exhibits in New Zealand and abroad. She is a leader in the field of time-based and new media art in New Zealand, and is well represented in Te Papa’s collections.

“Reihana is driven by a strong sense of community and collaboration is central to her art practice. She is a model artist in the NCEA Visual Arts Curriculum and her work is already widely studied in schools, so we are pleased to enable further learning.” Young says.

The resource provides a set of multimedia and curriculum-driven teaching units for Visual Art and Social Science learning areas, developed for Year 9–13 teachers and students.

Students can watch interviews with the artist and New Zealand at Venice team, make connections between Lisa Reihana: Emissaries and taonga in Te Papa’s collections, and investigate New Zealand’s previous exhibitions at the Venice Biennale.

The New Zealand at Venice Biennale: Digital Learning Resource is a collaboration between Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa, with support from Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

The learning resource will be available from today, Friday, 16 June.