The Art of First Contact

Students connect to the natural landscape as they walk through the pristine Nattai National Park and learn about Aboriginal art used for recording cultural knowledge and perspectives, using Dolly Daniels’ painting Warlukurlangu Jakurrpa (Fire Dreaming). Students work in small groups to interpret and use traditional symbols and found objects to represent their experience in nature.

Lunch

Students have recess before activities and a lunch break between session 1 and session 2.

Students walk to the Chapel Lookout and learn about convict and expedition artists in the colonies focusing on the art of Thomas Watling. The First Contact history of our site is explored and cultural perspectives about land care are compared. Students mix their own ochre-based watercolours and use them to paint the landscape visible from the lookout.

Cost

$8 per student

Learning intentions

• We are learning how Aboriginal Peoples used resources from the environment.
• We are learning to use paintings as evidence for how people lived in the past
• We are learning to represent our experience in nature artistically

Key syllabus outcomes and content

Syllabus Content:

HS2-ACH-01 describes Aboriginal Peoples’ obligations to Country, Culture and Community

• Describe how Aboriginal Peoples sustainably use the resources of Country

HS2-HIS-01 explains how people lived in the past, how navigation connected the world, and what life was like in the Sydney Cove penal settlement, using sources as evidence

Sources provide evidence of how people lived in the first penal settlement at Sydney Cove

• Represent life in the penal settlement at Sydney Cove using images, maps, personal accounts and sites

CA2-VIS-01 makes artworks using art forms to represent subject matter and ideas, and describes ways artists convey ideas about their world to audiences through artworks

Making: Artists represent their world through subject matter and ideas in artworks

• Represent subject matter and ideas in artworks, making choices based on own interpretations of the world
• Use drawing materials and techniques to create effects with texture and tone to represent subject matter and ideas
• Explore artmaking practices and protocols of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander artists to understand how Cultural ideas are expressed

Tier 2 and Tier 3 Vocabulary:

Line, shape, form, colour, texture, space, value, pattern, tone, ochre, symbol, technique, ephemeral, landscape