For: Australian Teaching and Participatory Artists working with children and the organisations that support them.

A space to share and enquire: participatory creative encounters with children in this new paradigm shift.

Lilly Blue is an interdisciplinary artist and educator, Co-Creative Director of BIG Kids Magazine, and Head of Learning and Creativity Research at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. AGWA Gently is a creative play project for young children (and for all of us needing gentle ways of being with the world), that offers simple prompts for intergenerational open-ended play. An ongoing research and engagement project born in response to speed, distance and content overwhelm, AGWA Gently seeks partnerships with children, artists, educators, and researchers with an interest in embodiment, emergence and more-than-human worlds. Simple poetic invitations to expand attention, play slowly and surrender to unknown outcomes invite heightened attention, and an expansion of range.

s l o w p l a y
s h a r e d l a u g h t e r
d r a w i n g b r e a t h
q u i e t c o l l a b o r a t I o n s
d e e p l i s t e n i n g
l e a r n i n g s o f t l y

This Shifting and Stirring will offer AGWA Gently as a provocation to collectively interrogate non-linear, emergent and collaborative research strategies. A mix of mark-making, writing, thinking, breathing, reading, noticing, moving, responding, sharing, grappling, and not-knowing, drawing on the imagination of participating artists and the worlds we work with.

// Creative links //
AGWA Gently: https://artgallery.wa.gov.au/learn/agwa-gently
Big Kids Magazine: http://bigkidsmagazine.com/
Conversatiosn with rain: https://artgallery.wa.gov.au/learn/artist-activation/conversations-with-rain

// What is Shifting & Stirring? //
With gathering no longer an option.
We are interested in this nowness.
Of this new fluid place.
What is our work here?
How do we migrate the liveness, articipation
& connections?
What can art, play & creativity be?
And how do we do it?
ArtPlay, ArTELIER, Sydney Opera House, AGWA and Maybe ( ) Together have collectively invested in presenting a series of online sessions for the artists and industry we work with. This is in a spirit of finding space to nationally share knowledge & skills beyond the buildings we no longer work in & provide a space for connection and discourse.
Each session will:
- be artist lead & involve sharing what they are currently working on including the challenges & discoveries.
- offer provocation and facilitated discussion
- involve active participation and invite you to consider your own practice.
This collective of organisations has come together to share knowledge, connect artists nationally and support independents in this new landscape.
When: Beginning 21st May, occurring fortnightly on rotating days from 10am AEST.
See this flyer for more details & dates: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cl03ab1zqe0ekn5/Final%20flyer%20.pdf?dl=0