The impact of the arts in education and health will be the subject of a free public lecture next week.
Senior Research Fellow and Director of ArtStories from Carles Darwin University’s (CDU) School of Education, Anja Tait will present the University’s final free public lecture of the 2008 series on Tuesday 28 October.
Ms Tait will present the lecture titled “A conversation: What are the arts good for? How do the arts fit (or not) in Northern Territory schools, health services and communities”.
In urban, rural and remote schools ArtStories uses the arts for teaching, learning, assessing and reporting outcomes across the curriculum and across the stages of schooling. It re-energises classroom practice and supports a sustained commitment to teacher professional learning.
In a remote community, the impact of ArtStories extends beyond improved outcomes for a target group of students. Its broader impacts include intergenerational transmission of language and cultural knowledge, affirmation of local Indigenous ways of teaching, and effective intercultural and interdisciplinary collaborations.
The arts also can play a potent role in a range of health services across the lifespan, including ante and postnatal care, early learning and child development, as well as palliative and bereavement care.
In a collaboration between the Royal Darwin Hospital Hospice and CDU, ArtStories offers creative arts opportunities in palliative and bereavement care for clients, families and staff. Referrals for creative arts participation may prioritise a range of areas, including physical, psychological, social and spiritual wellbeing. Anticipated developments in this arena include small-scale research projects in both palliative and bereavement care, with a particular focus on children and youth, and their perceptions, understandings and experiences of death and dying, loss and grief.
In all contexts the key to ArtStories is building relationships that generate creative, trusting collaborations, across gender, generation and culture.
Entry to all lectures in the CDU series is free. The lecture will start at 6pm at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Light refreshments will be served afterwards, concluding at 8pm.For more information go to: www.cdu.edu.au and http://artstories.cdu.edu.au