STEAM Classkit | Everything is connected

Everything is connected – STEAM and contemporary art

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Introduction

How to use this class kit – STEAM and contemporary art: The many languages of STEAM

A Class kit is a slideshow presentation that can be used directly with your students. It contains warm-up strategies, focus artworks, artist quotes, discussion ideas, quick activities and questions to dig deeper into ideas.

Materials: Your students do not need any special materials for class kits besides a pencil and paper and objects you might find around you.

Structure: A class kit focuses on one main idea that is divided into sections by theme. This class kit contains three themes. Each class kit also contains an Acknowledgement of Country activity.

You can present the whole class kit, or treat each theme section as an individual presentation.

Estimated timing:

Acknowledgement of Country activity: 5-10 minutes

Each theme section: 15-30 minutes

Total: 60-120 minutes

Discussion ideas also contain three levels of discussion: the main question, a ‘discuss’ prompt to take the idea further, and an ‘extend’ prompt that incorporates more complex ideas. This way you can choose the depth of discussion suitable for your students.

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Introduction

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Introduction

Photo of artists

STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics.

While many may be familiar with the acronym STEM, the inclusion of Arts in STEAM recognises the importance of art-based learning in creating well-rounded cross-disciplinary approaches. STEAM reminds us that everything is connected.

In STEAM, Art plays the important role of sustaining curiosity, encouraging flexibility, and sparking innovation. It reminds us to learn from each other and our surroundings. Without creative thinking, we don’t have ideas, hypotheses or inventions.

Contemporary art and art thinking have a place in STEM: they can offer a starting point, a time to play and listen to our gut, or help us reflect and reassess.

This class kit is part of the STEAM and contemporary art learning resource set. It focuses on on the idea that everything is connected through three main themes: ‘Collaborating with nature’, ‘Everything holds knowledge’ and ‘Who owns knowledge?’.

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Everything is connected

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Betty Kuntiwa Pumani in conversation with Rachel Kent 2020.

We go into the bush to find mingkulpa. We visit the place where the maku songline is embedded and reminisce. There is our grandmother and grandfather’s home, a significant place.

We harvest mingkulpa, we share knowledge of the stories, and we listen to my mother and big sister discussing the things of the past and the immense importance of our law.

Acknowledgement of Country

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First Nations systems of knowledge consider the land as an entity that holds memories, stories and histories, where humans are one part of an interconnected system that includes animals, plants, humans, land and space.

Take a moment to re-read the quote on the previous slide from Betty Kuntiwa Pumani, an MCA Collection artist from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia, as she talks about harvesting ‘mingkulpa’ or bush tabacco.

At the MCA, we acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners of the land and waters upon which the MCA stands. Find out what Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islands Nation or Country you are on and acknowledge the custodians of this land.

Acknowledgement of Country

Think about the place you are in. What memories, stories and histories do the land, plants and animals here hold?

What memories, stories and histories might have been told here thousands of years ago?

Did you know that many native plants have medicinal or nutritional properties? Research plants that are native to the...

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THeme 1:

Collaborating with nature

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Think about the things around you that you know are there, but that you can’t see. This could be weather, emotions, things underground.

Spend some time creating a visual represention of these things with pencil and paper.

Collaborating with nature

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Cameron Robbins

Wind Anolog 2020-21

Marine grade 316 stainless steel, aluminium, brass, composite fibre, marble, graphite. Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia with funds donated by Ginny and Leslie Green, 2021. Image courtesy and © the artist. Photograph: Anna Kučera.

Collaborating with nature

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Cameron Robbins

Wind Anolog (detail) 2020-21

Marine grade 316 stainless steel, aluminium, brass, composite fibre, marble, graphite. Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia with funds donated by Ginny and Leslie Green, 2021. Image courtesy and © the artist. Photograph: Anna Kučera

Collaborating with nature

‘Wind Anolog is a kinetic sculpture which responds to weather conditions, transcribing wind patterns by drawing in graphite directly onto a white marble slab over extended periods of time.

The sculpture is a collaboration between the artist, the natural world, and the built environment. Its triple axis takes design cues from sea birds, weather instruments, and sculpture – the marine environment informing its unpredictable movements.’

- Cameron Robbins, 2021, artist statement

“You need a fair bit of energy to create a drawing; you need power to create a movement onto a medium like paper, or marble, and that energy has to come from somewhere. It’s very difficult to make a drawing instrument that works from air conditioning inside a building, for example, because it’s very gentle. But when you’re outside, you can tap into the wind, and the dynamics of that allow for an infinite range of mark-making possibilities.”

- Cameron Robbins, 2021, in ‘Cameron Robbins’ new sculputre commision’, interview with Rachel Kent, MCA website

About the artwork

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In his statement about the work, Cameron Robbins says that Wind Anolog is a “collaboration between the artist, natural world, and built environment.”

What role does each collaborator play in the artwork?

Discuss:

Who or what else do you think has contributed to the creation of the artwork? Consider each step in the process from idea to installation.
How has the artist allowed the elements of chance and the unknown to influence the drawing?

Extend:

Can you find other artists that allow chance to help make an artwork? What elements or energies have they collaborated with? For example, gravity in 3 Standard Stoppages (1913–14) by Marcel Duchamp.

If we think of a paintbrush as a tool for making paintings, how does the Wind Anolog sculpture work as a tool (or instrument) for drawing and where can we see evidence of the hand of the artist?

Collaborating with nature

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Cameron Robbins, 2021, MCA website

My drawing instruments are sculptures that are able to transcribe things happening in the outside world from available energies. I trained as a sculptor and I love making things; that’s how I express myself. But the instruments are creating other works too: they are creating or transcribing information into a readable form.

Collaborating with nature

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With Wind Anolog, Cameron Robbins has made a kinetic drawing machine that turns an invisible energy into a “readable form.”

In what ways does nature or other energies and forces contribute to the art that you make?

Discuss:

What art materials have you used that come from nature? How do the qualities of these materials affect the output?
Does nature make artworks? Explain your answer. Write or draw some examples.

Extend:

What forces or energies need to be engaged during the art making process?

Describe or design an artmaking tool that harnesses natural forces or energies.

Collaborating with nature

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Theme 2:

Everything holds knowledge

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Think of a garden or pot plant that you or someone you know cares for.

How might a plant tell you what it needs?

Everything holds knowledge

How do you know when to water the plant?
How can you tell if the plant is unwell or under attack from pests?

How can you tell when it is thriving?

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Yasmin Smith,

Seine River Basin 2019

Installation view, MCA Collection: Perspectives on place, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2021. Limoges stoneware slip, wood ash glazes. Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2020. Image courtesy and © the artist. Photograph: Jessica Maurer

Everything holds knowledge

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Seine River Basin (2019) explores the chemical and social history of the River Seine, the river that flows through Paris, France. Over the course of several months, Yasmin Smith collected wooded plant specimens from along the banks and in the water. From these specimens, she made moulds in order to produce ceramic replicas. She then burned the wood down to ash, which became the basis of glazes that she applied to the cast forms.

Smith is interested in wood ash glazes because they render visual the inorganic elements absorbed by a tree over the course of its life from the soil and water. These elements are naturally occurring in the landscape and are sometimes introduced into the environment through human occupation, industrial and cultural activity.

As a result of these trace elements, different colours and textures emerge in the glaze during the firing process. The surface of Smith’s ceramic forms in Seine River Basin function as a visual register of the substances that had leached into the original specimen and remained lodged in its cellular structure, like memories.

About the artwork

Everything holds knowledge

Yasmin Smith

Seine River Basin (detail) 2019

Detail showing glaze comparison Seine Willow (berge) (1 x left)

and Marne Willow (flotté) (2 x right) glazes. Image courtesy and © the artist. Photo: Elle Fredericksen

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What knowledge or information could be stored in the branches used in the artwork Seine River Basin?

Discuss:

What were all the steps taken in creating this artwork? At each step think about what knowledge or information has been added into the artwork.
What knowledges are lost or left behind through the making of this artwork?

Extend:

Trees communicate and connect with one another through underground fungal networks. What knowledge might they be communicating to one another?

Everything holds knowledge

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Choose a natural presence that you find interesting, it could be an animal, plant, land or water feature. Draw a basic picture of this presence in the middle of a sheet of paper.

Now take some time to think about where it is. Can you guess how long it has been there? Who or what might have interacted with it over time? What has it seen? Add these elements to your drawing.

Everything holds knowledge

Discuss:

Think about the environment around your chosen presence. How do they interact? Add this to your drawing - you might use additional pictures or words.

Extend:

What kinds of knowledge does your chosen presence hold? Do they share this knowledge with other presences in their environment? Try and represent this in your drawing - you might use additional pictures or words.

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With Seine River Basin, the trace elements that each tree has absorbed in its life are made visible by Yasmin Smith through its ash glaze. The colours and textures in the glaze reveal the balance of elements.

We can think of this information in the artwork as data. What is the difference between this data, and the data held in a science report?

Discuss:

What different knowledge or data do we most commonly see presented in art versus science?

Do you think one presentation of data is more valid than the other? Explain your answer.

Extend:

Can art be science? Just because it isn’t presented in a scientific way, does that mean it isn’t science?
What are the differences between art knowledge and science knowledge? What are the differences between art processes and science processes?

Everything holds knowledge

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Yasmin Smith, 2021, MCA website

It’s more like a collaboration with the world, than it is trying to put the world into a box that you want to see it through

Everything holds knowledge

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Theme 3:

Who owns knowledge

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Quickly describe to the person next to you something interesting that has happened to you this week. Include as much detail as you can.

Now, ask this person to retell it back to you or someone else. Listen to their retelling.

Did anything change between these two retellings?

How did it feel having someone else tell your story?

Who owns knowledge?

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Noŋgirrŋa Marawili

Lightning 2017

Enamel paint on aluminium composite material. Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2017. Image courtesy and © the artist.

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Noŋgirrŋa Marawili has painted a Baratjala story, part of the Madarrpa clan’s group of custodial stories. The Madarrpa clan estate is adjacent to Cape Shield in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, where the artist camped with her father as a young girl. It concerns the Lightning Snake Mundukul, also known as the water python (Burrut’tji/Liasis Fuscus), and depicts the rocks set in deep water at this place. It reveals the electric ‘curse’ that the Lightning Snake spits into the sky, and the spray of the sea trying to shift the immoveable rock that forms the foundations of the Madarrpa story. Yurr’yunna is the word used to describe the rough waves breaking over the rock and the sea-spray flying into the sky.

Dramatic storms in the Northern Territory’s wet season are frequent and lightning strikes prevalent. This work draws upon the natural phenomenon of lightning to speak about the sacred power of the lightning serpent – its energy and intensity – that is a critical part of Yolŋu culture.

About the artwork

Noŋgirrŋa Marawili

Lightning (detail) 2017

Enamel paint on aluminium composite material. Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2017. Image courtesy and © the artist.

Who owns knowledge?

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Noŋgirrŋa Marawili has come up with her own way to depict the different elements in the story, including the lightning, large rocks in water and the sea-spray flying into the sky. Look closely at the different marks, shapes and lines in the painting.

Spend some time creating your own marks, shapes or lines to represent different elements in nature, such as clouds, rain, lightning, or water.

Discuss:

Compare your work with someone else. Take time to each describe how you came up with your marks, shape and lines.

Extend:

Were there any marks, shapes or lines that someone else created that you would like to use or adapt? Make a case to the person who created it why you should be allowed to use it.

Who owns knowledge?

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- Noŋgirrŋa Marawili, MCA Website, 2017

You may think this is a sacred painting. But the paintings I do are not sacred. I can’t steal my father’s painting. I just do my own design from the outside. Water. Rock. Rocks that stand strong. And the waves that run and crash upon the rocks. The sea spray. This is the painting I do. You may spy on me and think that I am painting sacred things. This would be a lie.

Who owns knowledge?

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What knowledge and information are we allowed to share? When should we ask for permission to share knowledge?

Discuss:

Why do you think it is important to engage with one another with respect and ethics in mind?

Extend:

How can we continue to protect and respect each other’s knowledge and their right to keep it in an increasingly digital world?
Research the term Indigenous Data Sovereignty.

Who owns knowledge?

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Noŋgirrŋa Marawili, Yasmin Smith and Cameron Robbins each reference and work with different cycles and systems in their artworks.

Cycles are defined as “a group of events that happen in a particular order, one following the other, and are often repeated.” 1 These could include life cycles or weather cycles.

Systems are “a way of doing things; a method” or “a set of connected items or devices that operate together.” 1 For example, chemistry or engineering.

Think about all the cycles and systems within each artwork. Can you think of any connections between them?

Everything is connected

Discuss:

Consider what other systems and cycles surround the artworks and artists, for example, the Museum, the art world, souring art materials, or the skills they’ve acquired.
Where do you intersect with these cycles and systems?

Extend:

Are there power dynamics in play within these cycles and systems?

1. Definitions taken from Cambridge Dictionary online.

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THANK YOU!

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Find more information about the MCA’s STEAM Programs and Learning Resources online.