Discover a wide range of educational resources produced by artists, guest curators, local writers and the PICA team. They include exhibition essays, artist videos, extended labels, activity sheets and more, and relate to PICA’s past exhibitions, performances, public programs and other events.
Catastrophes Learning
Hatched Learning
Marrugeku Learning
PICA Art Talks
Since 2022 PICA has been producing video interviews with the various creatives who have participated in our multi-arts program. Here you will find informative and educational video context with exhibiting artists, presenting performers, studio residency participants along with audio recordings of artist talks, panel discussions and other events.
PICA Art Talks: Cement Frogs the Ghost of a Swamp, Tyrown Waigana
Waigana was inspired by the network of wetlands that were once a prominent feature of the landscape that is now Perth, where PICA is situated. An ‘urban wetland’ that was established in Perth’s Cultural Centre in 2010 in recognition and remembrance of its original landscape will be drained and infilled as part of its revamp, due to commence in early 2025.
Reflecting on the incremental disappearance of wetlands across the city, Waigana looks to the Kyooya (Motorbike Frog) – a common green tree frog found in the region – ‘as a metaphor for an abundance of life both pre and post-colonisation.’ The iconic species populates the surfaces of the mural walls, painted against a blue background that hints at the presence of fresh water underneath the city and patterned with spots and patches resembling the skin markings found on the backs of the Kyooya.
Cement Frogs the Ghost of a Swamp celebrates swamps as abundant places, vital for supporting a range of wildlife such as the Kyooya, and ecologically and spiritually significant to the traditional owners. Grounding PICA in its location on Whadjuk Noongar boodja, Cement Frogs the Ghost of a Swamp invites visitors to engage with the stories, histories and forces that continue to shape the area.
‘Cement Frogs the Ghost of a Swamp will be a marker of place and a symbol of traditional Noongar knowledge as well as being a fun, welcoming piece for all ages to enjoy.’ – Tyrown WaiganaShow More
2022
Nathan Beard: A Puzzlement
A Puzzlement Room Sheet
A Puzzlement Wall Labels
Pilar Mata Dupont: Las Hormigas/The Ants
Las Hormigas/The Ants Room Sheet
Las Hormigas/ The Ants Wall Labels
Hatched National Graduate Show 2022
Hatched: National Graduate Show 2022 presents the work of leading emerging artists recently graduated from art schools across the nation. Since establishing Hatched in 1992 PICA has worked with generations of makers and watched many of them establish themselves as leading artists with enduring practices.
Selected by a panel of national and international artists and curators, the artists exhibiting as part of Hatched present a tantalising glimpse into the diverse and exciting practices of arts graduates in Australia, whose unique visions of the future are both urgent and compelling.
Hatched 2022 – Think: Secondary Student Worksheet [PDF]
Hatched 2022 – Teach: Educator Resource [PDF]
We hold you close – Katie West
Working with textiles and locally sourced plant matter, York-based artist Katie West’s immersive installations invite us to reconsider our relationship with the natural environment and each other. In her largest and most ambitious project to-date, We hold you close is a song for material intimacy that invites us to interact and engage in a sensory experience.
Gathering and learning from materials and one another is fundamental to West’s practice. In developing the exhibition, West invited friends and family to a natural dyeing workshop at her home on Noongar Ballardong boodja in York. Over two days, the group walked along the bilya collecting plant material. They made dye bundles and immersed them into pots of water on an open fire, to bubble away and become infused with the colour and scent of country. The group shared time around the fire, ate lunch, and drank cups of tea, waiting for the dye pot to do its work.
We hold you close – Think: Secondary Student Worksheet [PDF]
We hold you close – Teach: Educator Resource [PDF]
