Galnyatj! Inspire, Learn, Create Art draws upon the Eight Ways of Learning, an Aboriginal-based pedagogy to deliver culturally appropriate and accessible learning outcomes for students to gain deeper understanding of south east Australian Aboriginal culture and heritage through art.
Kaiela Arts’ Galnyatj Schools Program offers students and teachers opportunities to experience and learn about local Aboriginal stories, culture and history through art making and yarning with our artists.
Galnyatj runs every Tuesday in our gallery and studio spaces and is open for bookings from both primary and secondary schools in the Goulburn Valley. We can accommodate excursion groups in either a morning or afternoon program.
Gallery talks, ceramics, drawing and painting workshops, storytelling, weaving and dance are some of the workshops we currently have on offer, providing unique opportunities to build understanding of Aboriginal cultural value and Aboriginal ways of seeing, doing, knowing and being.
Click here to enquire about your school visiting Kaiela Arts
The bayaderra (long neck turtle) is a common symbol used in Yorta Yorta art, as the species is the Yorta Yorta people’s totem. The Yorta Yorta people believe that bayaderra is our protector, provider and guide. Bayaderra is often used prominently in visual representations of our creation stories.
Our clay turtle making workshops provide an opportunity for students living on Yorta Yorta country, to learn about why the long neck turtle is so important to Yorta Yorta people, through hands on making and conversation with one of our artists. We also sell take home clay turtle making kits.
Photo: Kaiela Arts
Stories are expressions of our culture, our land and histories. Our oral traditions demonstrate Aboriginal perspectives about the past, present and future and allow us to pass on concepts and beliefs from generation to generation.
Kaiela Arts story telling sessions combine oral and visual approaches, weaving together important local stories, cultural practices, traditions and language, to help students understand the history of our people, the land, the water, the air, animals and plants, the people and the culture.
We have a collection of books and stories produced by our artists that are used in our storytelling sessions and available for sale including: Count With Me, Living Stories of the Dungala Kaiela, Badja Bayaderra
Photo: Kaiela Arts
Weaving is a way of life for Aboriginal people, it’s more than just producing a basket, it is about weaving as a necessity for life. Weaving is a knowledge, an innate cultural practice that is continuous and has been passed down from generation to generation. Weaving is about identity and kinship. The importance of passing down cultural knowledge keeps strong ties to country. Kaiela Art’s weaving workshops use natural and hand dyed raffia connecting students to Aboriginal culture and ways of being, through weaving and yarning, while also creating their own special artwork.
Photo: Kaiela Arts
Aboriginal Art is the oldest ongoing tradition of art in the world. It includes work made in many different ways including painting on leaves, wood carving, rock carving, sculpting, ceremonial clothing, body paint, ochre and sand painting. Traditionally, ochres were used to paint signs, symbols and icons on rocks to tell stories of First Nations people. To this day, Aboriginal Art is focused on storytelling and carries knowledge of the stories, lands, kinship, events and beliefs of Aboriginal people. Artwork we see today on canvas and board only started appearing in the last 100 years.
Kaiela Arts painting and drawing sessions encourage students to engage with Aboriginal art practices while working collaboratively. We explore the uses of art as a visual language for storytelling, by getting everyone to work on an individual art piece that speaks to their own personal story.
Photo: Kayla Frizzell
Kaiela Arts has a dedicated team who invite you to look closely and feel deeply about the works of Aboriginal art on display in the gallery. During a Kaiela Arts Gallery Talk you can meet our gallery staff and some of our local artists behind the artworks. Students listen to get more of an understanding about Aboriginal Art as staff or artists speak about the artworks, creative inspiration and cultural processes behind the works, and what signs, symbols, patterns, animals and colours they have used and why. Important communication, stories and history have been carried across various mediums such as message sticks, painting, song, dance, weaving and carvings.
Kaiela Arts Gallery Talks explore different types of stories from both traditional and modern artworks and encourage students to think about art as a method of storytelling and communication, and to explore their own interpretations and responses to artworks in the gallery.
Our program supports learning across the humanities curriculum, general capabilities and in particular the Visual arts.
In Levels 5 and 6, students explore how and why artists, craftspeople and designers realise their ideas through different visual forms, practices and processes. They develop conceptual and expressive skills.
As they make and respond to visual artworks, students explore a diversity of ideas, concepts and viewpoints. They draw ideas from other artists, artworks, symbolic systems, beliefs and visual arts practices in other cultures, societies and times.
Students extend their understanding of safe visual arts practices and choose to use sustainable materials, techniques and technologies.
Explore ideas and artworks from different cultures and times as inspiration to create visual artworks (VCAVAE025)
Explore visual arts practices as inspiration to create artworks that express different ideas and beliefs (VCAVAE029)
Explore visual conventions and use materials, techniques, technologies and processes specific to particular art forms, and to make artworks (VCAVAV026)
Select and apply visual conventions, materials, techniques, technologies and processes specific to different art forms when making artworks (VCAVAV030)
Identify and discuss how ideas are expressed in artworks from a range of places, times and cultures, including artworks by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (VCAVAR028)
Identify and describe patterns of continuity and change in daily life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, ‘native born’ and migrants in the Australian colonies (VCHHC085)
Significant contributions of individuals and groups, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and migrants, to changing Australian society (VCHHK096)
Analyse how aspects of their own and others lifestyle, behaviour, attitudes and beliefs can be culturally influenced (VCICCB009)
Influence of people, including the influence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, on the environmental characteristics of Australian places (VCGGK094)
Describe what it means to be confident, adaptable and persistent and why these attributes are important in dealing with new or challenging situations (VCPSCSE027)
Your donation ensures that Kaiela Arts can continue to support and nurture artists in the Kaiela Dungala region.
All donations over $2 are tax-deductible.
Kaiela Arts is a member of the Indigenous Art Code which relays all transparent, fair and ethical dealing between art centres and artists.
Kaiela Arts Shepparton acknowledges and pays respect to the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we are located in Shepparton which forms part of the Yorta Yorta Nation.