Since the fall of 2005, ArtReach, an educational partnership between the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia Department of Education, and the Canada Council Art Bank has established exciting arts connections between the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Nova Scotia schools. This program consists of travelling exhibitions of original Art Bank prints and workshops for teachers and students across the province, the development of on-line curriculum links between gallery works and school programs, and regular arts workshops for teachers. During the past two years, ArtReach has engaged teachers, students and community in successful tours in over a dozen locations across the province.
ArtReach has been enthusiastically received in schools, museums, and galleries in Liverpool, Amherst, Sydney, Annapolis, Digby, Wolfville, Pictou, Port Hawkesbury, Inverness, Baddeck Bridgewater, Fortress of Louisbourg, Yarmouth, and Wagmatcook.
In each location, participants examine art works by Canadian artists and are provided with opportunities to learn more about the techniques of printmaking through creating their own works. A kit containing artist information, curriculum links, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia publications, a “Learning to Look” resource, and tools for printmaking, remain with the exhibition so that additional groups may be accommodated. In each venue, engagement with and response to the works results in many forms of literacy and includes poetry, soundscapes, stories, dance, and visual art.
This past year, in association with the Flight Dreams exhibition, the AGNS ArtReach team traveled to Baddeck, the home of the 2009 Silver Dart Centenary celebrations. Students from grades six to twelve at Baddeck Academy employed various media through sculpture, poetry, and print in the creation of fantastic flying things. These original works were on display in the Gallery during the Flight Dreams exhibition and represented the myriad of ideas that come to mind when young people are charged with the task of creating something that flies.
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