Creative Title - Painting on Country ​was created for a University of Sydney Aboriginal Studies assignment by Stephanie Beck in 2018. It was designed to engage students in the topic of Aboriginal Street Art, particularly in the Redfern area. 

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This website contains 5 key components;

-    An excursion with a walking tour app
-    A gallery of Street Art

-    A forum for students and others to share street art photos
-    Student resources, including excursion instructions, how to 

     use the app and links to resources used in class
-    Teacher resources, including lesson plans, excursion 

     instructions, how to use the app guide and worksheets

 

This series of lessons focuses on Aboriginal street art in

Sydney and its surrounds, in particular exploring the story

behind each artwork alongside the role it played or message it conveyed. As such, the lessons also seek to engage with the stories of the Indigenous artists behind the work, and of the communities being represented through each public installation. 

There are a number of key ideas drawn out in this unit. In particular, it explores the role of contemporary street art in cultural expression in urban areas. The question of what comprises “authentic” Aboriginal art is often raised, especially surrounding the creation of art in urban areas.

The title project - ’Creative Title: Painting on Country in Sydney’ - refers to both the practice of painting on the physical environment (the Australian colonial, urban country) and also to the practice of painting when situated on one’s land and country (or on the country of another Aboriginal nation). 

Student will also explore the role of street art in both speaking to the community and in highlighting social issues and injustices to a broader public. The questions of; “Why create public art?” and “Why paint on a public space?” will be raised.

Furthermore, the question of heritage will underpin this unit. Having witnessed the changes occurring in Redfern’s The Block, it is interesting to note that Reko Rennie’s “Welcome to the Block” installation on a lone terrace house remains intact. Students will explore the idea of what is worth preserving; what is deemed temporary and what is deemed heritage when painted on the physical environment (as opposed to the physical environment itself). 

Finally, students will explore the perception of street art in the community. Whilst different in many ways to graffiti, it remains a largely unregulated and unofficial form of expression. In recent years, local councils including the City of Sydney and Inner West Council have commissioned works and encouraged street art, yet historically street art was a form of “guerrilla" urban creativity or protest. 

As this project is Sydney-based, student work will take place on country, as they view, photograph and speak to people about street art through the excursion. A number of the principles of place-based learning and place literacy are incorporated in this unit. Somerville (2007) stated that place literacy must be embodied and local, relational and communicated and involve a contact zone of contested stories. As such, student work focuses on local community, involves hearing from and speaking  to Indigenous street artists and explores questions of contest and contact embodied in each artwork.