# data[].attributes.headline
Civics and Citizenship Resources for the Permanent Collection

# data[].attributes.subject
Civics and Citizenship Resources for the Permanent Collection

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
AGSA - The Art Gallery of South Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Our resources and programs for teachers and students are framed around capability building, not just content delivery. We want all young people to be visually and media literate, have the ability to analyse and inquire, deconstruct, think critically, evaluate and have empathy for others.

We have compiled a selection of resources about artists and works of art in our collection that provide starting points for teachers to introduce civics and citizenship concepts to students.

Governance is a vital part of civics and citizenship education, and probably the first thing you and your students think of when hearing this topic. However, it is more than governance. Civics and citizenship education is about understanding broader values such as respect, civility, equity, justice, responsibility, diversity and identity in contemporary society. This cross-curriculum priority is also about learning how individuals and groups (including artists) can influence civic life and developing skills, values and dispositions that enable students to become active and informed citizens.

The Australian Curriculum acknowledges the experiences and contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and their identities within contemporary Australia. While the curriculum strongly focuses on the Australian context, students also reflect on Australia's position and international obligations and the role of citizens today, both within Australian and in an interconnected world.

In creating this suite of resources, we have used the 'Civics and Citizenship Concept Wheel' created by Malcolm McInerney (Lecturer/ HaSS Curriculum Advisor at University of South Australia, 2020), as a way of connecting civics and citizenship concepts to works of art.

The individual artist resources you will discover below provide contextual information about each artist, their works of art and provocations for making and responding activities in the classroom that make links to the Australian Curriculum and the Civics and Citizenship Concept Wheel.

More

We encourage you to engage with the Education Team at Parliament of South Australia for programs, tours and resources on understanding Australia's system of government. This includes how people choose their governments, how the system safeguards democracy and how laws and the legal system protect people's rights.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Teach and plan through Civics and Citizenship concepts.

Description

Activity

This deck of cards can be used for multiple activities to teach Civics and Citizenship through concepts. These cards refer to a civics and citizenship concept wheel:

Example activities with students:

As a class, do an exercise to define the overall wheel themes, e.g. equity, governance. Then allocate the cards and ask each student to define the concept underneath each theme.

Pick out a concept card, then find a news article from that day that shows the concept in action.

Pick out a concept card, then describe how it links to two other subjects at school.

Look at texts, videos, news articles or works of art, and draw concept cards one at a time until you make a collection of all the concepts you can see in that work.

Example activities with other teachers:

Support cross-curricular Civics & Citizenship implementation by using the card themes to link to other subject areas.

Plan lessons around individual concepts.

Staff meeting thought exercises - teachers draw a card and explain how the concept is seen in their subject.

Duration

Various.

Preparation Required

1. Print the instruction page (or refer to it online) for ways to use with students and teachers.

2. To create a deck of cards, print the remaining sheets A4 landscape and slice in half. You'll end up with a deck of A5 sized cards.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Civics and Citizenship Concept Cards - Parliament of South Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teach and plan civics and citizenship through conceptual ideas using these interactive cards.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Artful Citizenship: Blending Civics & Creativity in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Art Gallery of South Australia houses one of Australia’s most stunning art collections. Its outstanding collection of 38,000 works covers Australian, European, North American, and Asian art.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Debate: The Adult Suffrage Bill - Parliament of South Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn the passage of a Bill through a scripted roleplay of how women got the right to vote in SA.

# data[].attributes.headline
Kay Lawrence Education Resource (Women's Suffrage Tapestries)

# data[].attributes.subject
Kay Lawrence Education Resource (Women's Suffrage Tapestries)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Art Gallery of South Australia houses one of Australia’s most stunning art collections. Its outstanding collection of 38,000 works covers Australian, European, North American, and Asian art.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Design A Mace - Parliament of South Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What symbols would you have on your own Mace?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I was recently commissioned by the Parliament of South Australia and Art Gallery of South Australia to design a poster spotlighting state emblems for teachers, students and classrooms in my signature graphic Pop style.

The ' Iconic SA Emblems' poster will be distributed to 2000 school across South Australia in 2025, encouraging students to be actively engaged citizens and become familiar with the state flora, fauna, fossils (and my personal favourite, the state tartan!)

For more information on attending a tour of Parliament House, where members of the public can receive a copy of the A2 poster, click here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
FRIDA LAS VEGAS X PARLIAMENT OF SA X AGSA - FRIDA LAS VEGAS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
FRIDA LAS VEGAS x PARLIAMENT OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA X ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

# data[].attributes.headline
Women’s Suffrage Centenary Tapestries | Parliament House Education Video

# data[].attributes.subject
Women’s Suffrage Centenary Tapestries | Parliament House Education Video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Women’s Suffrage Centenary Tapestries | Parliament House Education

# data[].attributes.headline
Centre of Democracy - Women's Suffrage petition 

# data[].attributes.subject
Centre of Democracy - Women's Suffrage petition 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Search the Women’s Suffrage Petition (1894)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On 23 August 1894 George Hawker, member for North Adelaide, presented to the South Australian House of Assembly a petition in favour of women’s suffrage. It was signed by approximately 11,600 men and women. Members of the Women’s Suffrage League, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Working Women’s Trade Union were primarily responsible for collecting […]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
AGSA - The Art Gallery of South Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Patricia Piccinini is one of Australia's leading contemporary artists. She was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and arrived in Australia in 1972 with her family. She initially studied economic history before enrolling at art school in Melbourne. After studying painting at the Victorian College of the Arts, she rapidly established a reputation for her work dealing with topical social issues, especially those concerned with bio-engineering and human reproduction.

She enjoys exploring what she calls 'the often specious distinctions between the artificial and the natural'. The concepts that underpin modern science, such as genetic engineering and other forms of biotechnology, are of particular interest to her.

Piccinini has embraced a wide array of materials in her work and moves across multiple media forms: these include still, computer generated images, interactive CD-ROMs, immersive video and sculptural installations, and most recently, film. Piccinini often works by commissioning specialist collaborators from various fields of contemporary industrial manufacture. She is well known for her bio-morphic silicon sculptures, minutely detailed visions of imaginary creatures brought into the world through genetic engineering.

Piccinini has an ambivalent attitude towards technology and she uses her artistic practice as a forum for discussion about how technology impacts upon life. She is keenly interested in how contemporary ideas of nature, the natural and the artificial are changing our society. Specific works have addressed concerns about biotechnology, such as gene therapy and ongoing research to map the human genome. Piccinini often creates acutely aesthetic and appealing works as a means of discussing complex ethical issues; she is also fascinated by the mechanisms of consumer culture.
Text by Tracey Lock, Curator of Australian Paintings and Sculpture, 2009

Through the realism of photography, moving image, sculpture, drawing and installation, Piccinini takes us into a world that is not so different from our own.' She invites us to contemplate our place within a time - our time - when biological and digital technologies are challenging the boundaries of humanity. Piccinini's practice has been described as transversing three orbits - the biosphere, the autosphere and the atmosphere - each of which in turn reflect her investigation of biotechnology, car culture and the construct of nature within contemporary society. The themes that inform her practice occur are ultimately a story about finding beauty in a world that can never be perfect.

The tenor of Piccinini's work is one of hope - that we will use our capacity to make change for the better. She reminds us that sinister forces and tensions are ever-present, from capitalist motivations, to the unknown outcomes of human-assisted evolution. Her underpinning message is, however, that we should not abandon what we initially judge to be frightful or hideous. By demonstrating that we are on the cusp of living Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Piccinini prompts us to recall how it was the continual rejection, torment and prejudice against the monster that pushed him to renounce humankind and take revenge against his creator. If we are to avoid the tragic fate of Frankenstein and hi monster, we must show greater compassion and tolerance towards one another and all living things. Perhaps only then will the world be fine tonight'

Piccinini awakens our minds and emotions to the possibility of a genetically modified and transgenic (where genes from one species are inserted into the genetic material of another species) world. Since the mid- 1990s she has taken audiences on a journey to the fringes of existence, leaving them there to contemplate their humanity, their prejudices against difference, the ethics of biotechnology and the hopes - or fears - they assign to medical science. Piccinini's interest has never been whether such technologies are right or wrong, or in the actual processes of biochemistry and molecular biology, but rather whether society will accept the progeny of scientific intervention when it does not conform to the idealised image promised by gene therapy.

In recent years, the focus of her work has begun to shift. While incorporating many of the same issues and concepts, Piccinini's critique has expanded to include an investigation of evolutionary biology and how the machine - that invention that now dominates contemporary society - may, by developing animalistic patterns of behaviour, become a sentient and autonomous being. Although her work is primarily optimistic, in that she celebrates the wonder and diversity of creation, it does contain dark undercurrents. The utopia promised by new technologies sits uncomfortably within Piccinini's work and we are compelled to consider human destiny in the face of a post-human world.

Humankind cannot control life or evolution; we may manipulate its various elements by altering the environment or creating new life forms, but we cannot control or predict the outcomes of our interference. Hence, if society chooses to customise life, we need to understand that we are answerable for the outcomes.

Piccinini presents audiences with what may initially be perceived as the flawed, the hideous or the grotesque. Her work could arguably be seen as irrational and futuristic, the product of a mind obsessed with Hollywood's version of sci-fi. Such a sensationalist reading of Piccinini and her work, however, is misplaced. Her practice has far greater nuance and compassion. Fundamentally opposed to Hollywood's fiction, she draws inspiration from existing technologies and events reported in the media. Since the birth of the first in-vitro fertilisation baby in 1978, the world has continued to witness monumental developments in genetic science, from the first cloned animal (Dolly the sheep) in 1996, to the complete draft mapping of the human genome and the creation of the first synthetic organism (SOl) in 2000. From this context of tissue engineering, genetic modification and the creation of synthetic life forms, Piccinini's creatures have emerged.

Text by Jane Messenger, originally published in 'Patrica Piccinini: Once upon a time'.. catalogue, 2011.

Inquiry and Skills

Pose questions to investigate people, events, places and issues (ACHASSI073

Interact with others with respect to share points of view (ACHASSI080)

Work in groups to generate responses to issues and challenges (ACHASSI102)

Examine different viewpoints on actions, events, issues and phenomena in the past and present (ACHASSI099)

Develop appropriate questions to guide an inquiry about people, events, developments, places, systems and challenges (ACHASSI094

Citizenship, diversity and identity

How values, including freedom, respect, inclusion, civility, responsibility, compassion and equality, can promote cohesion within Australian society (ACHCK052 )

Analysis, synthesis and interpretation

Critically analyse information and ideas from a range of sources in relation to civics and citizenship topics and issues (ACHCS056)

Account for different interpretations and points of view(ACHCS085)

Problem-solving and decision-making

Appreciate multiple perspectives and use strategies to mediate differences (ACHCS057)

Recognise and consider multiple perspectives and ambiguities, and use strategies to negotiate and resolve contentious issues (ACHCS086)

Patricia Piccinini's work encourages us to consider ethical dilemmas. While they may seem far from reality, these works of art help students to understand what it means to be empathetic and consider possible ethical questions that could arise in their lifetime.

This work is inspired by two events in Piccinini's life. The first is a true story about a female baboon whose baby died and feeling sad and lonely, the baboon took a human baby to care for. Despite the large scale of the figure, she gently holds and feeds a human baby, showing love and tenderness just like humans do. The baby is calm and safe in the arms of Big Mother. This work of art encourages us to be empathetic, and highlights the bonds that unite all living beings, regardless of appearance.

The second came from the difficulties Piccinini had breat-feeding her son Hector. "He really didn't want to suck which made it hard to get the milk going and so my sister suggested I try breast feeding her baby, who was older and more hungry. I tried, and through breast feeding my sisters baby I learned how to feed Hector. It was really interesting how strange and unusual it is for a mother to breast-feed another person's baby. Even stranger perhaps is how much more comfortable we are drinking the breast milk of another animal - say a cow - than another human being."[1]

By experiencing the emotions presented so palpably in Big Mother, we, the human audience, begin to see the boundaries between human and animal disappear. The feelings and instincts of Piccinini's animals, regardless of how they have evolved, are equal to our own. Piccinini thus prompts us to consider the validity of the hierarchy we impose, a hierarchy that continues to privilege human over non-human animals, and domesticated animals (such as pigs and dogs, which she deliberately references in her creatures to remind us of their' artificially' selective breeding) over the transgenic beings and chimera developed in laboratories, Should all animals have the right to equal consideration because, as the ethicist Peter Singer has argued, 'if an animal feels pain, the pain matters as much as it does when a human feels pain - if the pain hurts just as much. Pain is pain, whatever the species of being that experiences it'?

When looking at the work we can imagine different stories: is this mother a specially engineered primate who has been bred to be a wet nurse? Is she some kind of helper, carer or babysitter?

[1] Patricia Piccinini, Big Mother, https://www.patriciapiccinini.net/writing/50, 2005

Why is Big Mother so sad? If Big Mother could talk, what do you think she would say to you about being a mother?

How can we encourage empathy in order to influence our world in positive ways in the future?

What is your first impression on looking at this sculpture? Does your impression change as you walk around the sculpture and examine it more closely?

Piccinini is interested in notions of family. Discuss in class your interpretation of family, or what constitutes a family in contemporary - or future - society?

How does this particular depiction of 'nurturing,' both physical and emotional, question what it is to be human?

The lovers cleverly mixes the appearance and features of animal and machine. It combines the shape of the popular Italian motor scooter, the Vespa, and the muscular form of a male deer, a stag. A hybrid form is created. Piccinini has 'imagined' two scooters behaving as animals - as stags fighting, perhaps over territory, or females, as animals do in the wild. there is a remarkable sense of movement achieved in the sculpture, with the shiny sinuous bodies seeming to twist and writhe. one stag is clearly dominant, the other appearing almost to cringe in defeat. the defeated stag looks bewildered - look closely at its 'dial'! The work raises issues about what is natural, and what is mechanical, and about power and hierarchies in groups or communities. Who will survive: the fittest, the strongest, those bred for particular conditions? The work also reflects another of Piccinini's favourite themes: consumerism. In Italy, Vespas are seen as symbolic of style and class - they are very desirable, even though not always practical.

Imagine what would happen in our world if machines became 'human'! Talk about this possibility with a classmate. Choose a machine from your home or shed, and show in a drawing how it could become 'human'.

Create a series of photographic images of mechanical objects and using a computer program, imagine an animate your favourite image as an animal. Consider how it's shape and form may influence the type of movements it makes.

Research developments in medical science / technology where new mechanical interventions and attachments are improving the lives of sick or disabled people.

More works by Patricia Piccinini in the collection

'Patrica Piccinini: Once upon a time', 2011 exhibition resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Patricia Piccinini is one of Australia's leading contemporary artists. She was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and arrived in Australia in 1972 with her family. She initially studied economic history before enrolling at art school in Melbourne.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Art Gallery of South Australia houses one of Australia’s most stunning art collections. Its outstanding collection of 38,000 works covers Australian, European, North American, and Asian art.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Art Gallery of South Australia houses one of Australia’s most stunning art collections. Its outstanding collection of 38,000 works covers Australian, European, North American, and Asian art.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Art Gallery of South Australia houses one of Australia’s most stunning art collections. Its outstanding collection of 38,000 works covers Australian, European, North American, and Asian art.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
AGSA - The Art Gallery of South Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Fiona Hall is one of Australia's most well-known and innovative contemporary artists. She grew up in Sydney in a family with a keen sense of enquiry; most significantly her mother was a prestigious scientist and her brother pursued a career in mathematics. Hall's endeavours as an artist are parallel to that of a scientist; searching for understanding about humanity and the environment.

Hall works across a range of media including painting, photography, sculpture and installation. At times she uses unusual materials such as soap, sardine tins, aluminium cans, video tape, currency and beads. Hall uses these everyday objects to address contemporary issues associated with history, politics, conflict and the environment.

All the King's Men was the Masterwork in Hall's 2015 Venice Biennale exhibition Wrong Way Time. Made for the new Australian Pavilion in Venice, this installation includes 20 sculptures. It is an exemplary manifestation of Hall's maverick powers of material transformation and is the culmination of decades of conceptual and material investigation.

Military uniforms bearing camouflage prints from several countries are shredded and tightly woven by the artist into twenty oversized heads with misshapen knitted bodies suspended from in space. Teeth, bones, horns and found objects adorn the mask-like heads and their ghostly, skeletal bodies. These hollow people of war and conflict represent the many who have fallen and those who are yet to fall in the name of nationhood.

The different camouflage patterns used by Hall reference countries the globe over, from the Asia-Pacific to the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, and conflicts from the Second World War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hall's use of the varied patterns makes reference to a defiant intermingling and speaks to a camaraderie, despite military formation, cultural, racial or linguistic difference.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fiona Hall is one of Australia's most well-known and innovative contemporary artists. She grew up in Sydney in a family with a keen sense of enquiry; most significantly her mother was a prestigious scientist and her brother pursued a career in mathematics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Art Gallery of South Australia houses one of Australia’s most stunning art collections. Its outstanding collection of 38,000 works covers Australian, European, North American, and Asian art.