Conversations with Rain
Conversations with Rain is an ongoing multi-platform partnership between AGWA Learning and ECU School of Education exploring children’s creative relations with weather as a way of potentially transforming our climate futures. The project harnesses learning methodologies that prioritise creativity, participation and engagement.
Ngarralja Tommy May Raining on Kurtal 2016. Scratched enamel on tin, 120 x 120 cm. State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased 2017. © Tommy May/Copyright Agency, 2019.
Rather than didactic learning ‘about’ climate crisis, the Conversations with Rain workshops and creative learning resources offer opportunities for sensing, noticing, breathing, wondering and experimenting toward open-ended imaginative outcomes.
Young children participated in studio workshops where they responded to Ngarralja Tommy May’s painting Raining on Kurtal as inspiration for the creation of a sensory Rain Book that became part of a wider Library of Rain including over 500 hand-made books.
Through the exploration of materials children performed impromptu soundscapes of rainfall which were recorded, and then arranged into an audio work called Sound of Rain – exhibited as part of The Botanical: Beauty and Peril.
Driven by artist practices of embodied attention and collective experimentation, Conversations with Rain focuses on dissolving the binary between humans and the environment through creatively attending to the materiality of rain. The research investigates how interdisciplinary, embodied, and practice-led approaches can deepen engagement, lead to more responsive nature/culture relations, and enliven connection and empathy.
Ladders and boats rain upwards
A water-falling rain-field
Spiderwebs, sticks and strings
Sewing on the bottom of the ocean
Rain writing collected from multiple children’s
responses to Raining on Kurtal, and curated by
Jo Pollitt
INTERPRETATION, LEARNING & AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT – LEVEL 2
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Art Gallery of Western Australia Conversations with Rain
2020 heralds the tenth year of the Museums and Galleries National Awards. The MAGNAs intend to encourage the continuous improvement and development of Australian museums and galleries, inspire and recognise best practice and innovation in the collecting sector and enhance the profile of museums and galleries in local and wider communities. Entries to the awards come from the smallest community museums to the largest national institutions in the areas of exhibition, learning and engagement, research and Indigenous projects.
Unlocking Imagination
Kep Waangkiny
Conversations with Rain – Response Journal
In discussion – Sound of Rain
Imagination Room Partner
Art Access Partner
Project Partner
Conversations with Rain is supported by our Art Access Partner, Healthway, Act Belong Commit, and is part of the Climate Action Network, a research project funded by SSHRC exploring children’s creative relations with weather as a way of potentially transforming our climate futures. Conversations with Rain research team: Artist Educator Lilly Blue (AGWA), Dr Jo Pollitt and Professor Mindy Blaise (ECU).
