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Surreal activities teaching resource

This resource is full of activities that will help you to explore surrealism with your students. The activities are playful and sometimes irrational, a bit like surrealism itself.

Learning areas and strands

Surrealism

Education type

Education resource

Suitable for

All ages

We’ve designed the activities so you can hand them straight out to your students. For a quick overview of each, look at the summary at the top each page. This will also tell you what you need for the activity. If you see an asterisk* next to an item on the list of things you’ll need, that means it’s an item you can print or photocopy from the ‘Resources’ section of the booklet.

We hope that completing these activities will result in liberating and unexpected consequences for you and your students!

This resource includes images from Te Papa’s 2021 exhibition on international surrealist art. It also includes images by artists from Aotearoa New Zealand where surrealism continues to have an influence. Have fun exploring surrealist artists from Aotearoa in more detail by using Collections Online.

Download the Surreal activities teaching resource (38.65 MB)

Surreal activities example page, 2021. Te Papa