Welcome
A Map of a Dream of the Future (AMDF) is an art and education project commissioned for the Junction 2010 Australian Regional Arts Conference. AMDF asks us to re-imagine Tasmania's future. It aims to stimulate and express the thinking of a generation of young Tasmanians about climate change and island sense of place.
Stage 1: Through workshops and an artistic education kit, young Tasmanians (Grades 5 and 6) are taught about climate change, and led through exercises that help them imagine their communities in 80 years time, in response to climate change.
Stage 2: Students' images, stories, ideas and survey responses are collected after 30 June 2010 and displayed as part of an online future Tasmania.
Stage 3: The project is presented to the public in August 2010 as a contemporary art installation in the form of a hanging garden. The installation uses sophisticated data-visualisation to map young people's dreams about the future.
For Teachers
Find out more about our Fresh! Education program, or register to take part in the project. It's free. We'll send you an amazing education kit if you don't already have one, and pre-paid envelopes so you can send your students' work back to us.
Please note: We have had a technical issue with our registration system. If you registered before March 10, you'll need to re-register. We sincerely apologise for this.
Want more information?
If you are a teacher of grades 5 and 6, or just interested in this work, contact Josie Hurst (fresh[at]tasregionalarts[dot]org) for more information.
Where did AMDF come from and who's involved?
AMDF engages a strong creative team including artist and writer Nicolas Low, writer Heidi Douglas, graphic artist Nadine Kessler, and arts educator Josie Hurst.
The project is presented by Tasmanian Regional Arts and the University of Tasmania's School of Environment and Geography. It was conceived by Associate Professor Elaine Stratford, has executive direction from TRA's CEO, Paul Jenkins, and project management from Kate McDonald.
Supporters
The project is generously supported through Arts Tasmania by the Minster for Tourism and the Arts; by the Tasmanian Climate Change Office; and the Australian Government through its Regional Arts Fund program. The Regional Arts Fund is an Australian Government initiative supporting the arts in regional, remote and very remote/isolated Australia.
AMDF proudly acknowledges the endorsement of this project by the Australian National Commission of UNESCO.
What kind of future world do young Tasmanians want to live in? AMDF's education program, entitled Fresh!, is an exciting, easy-to-use kit designed for year 5 and 6 teachers. It takes a fun and imaginative look at life in Tasmania in the future. The kit uses story-telling, drawing, writing and performance to help students imagine their town in 2090. It encourages resilience and creative and critical thinking.
The education kit has been flexibly designed for teachers, with exercises that can be done in a few days or over a few weeks during Term 1 2010.
Download the kit: High-res version (14mb PDF) | Quick lower-res vxersion (1mb PDF)
Links to the Curriculum
Several curricula are comprehensively addressed by the exercises, including:
- Society and history
- Arts
- English and literacy
- Health and wellbeing
In particular, there is a strong focus on problem solving and creativity. The Thinking Curriculum is powerfully integrated within each subject.
Teaching through story-telling
At the kit's heart is a fascinating story by writers Heidi Douglas and Nicolas Low, taking kids on an imaginative journey through a world that has been transformed by climate change.
Ready to use
The kit is classroom-ready, with easy-to-follow instructions.
More than teaching: learning from our kids
As well as teaching students about climate change and the future, we want to learn from them! Our younger generation will be the ones who have to live through climate change, and it's important to ask them what their hopes, fears and dreams are. At the end of each section of the education kit, students fill out a questionnaire. We're asking teachers to post these back to us, where we'll use the information to make an amazing website and an art installation.
Involve your class in a national art installation and conference
If you use the kit with your Grade 5 and 6 classes, and send us student work before 30 June 2010, their writing, art and other offerings will be used to make a national art installation by award winning artist Nicolas Low.
Their ideas will be shown using a customised Google Earth map of Tasmania, and in a huge installation: a climate change garden created in Launceston in August as part of Junction 2010. Junction 2010 is the national Australian Regional Arts conference and includes over 1000 educators, artists and community leaders. See the installation section for more.
In-depth workshops
Four schools in Tasmania have been invited to spend time with writer Heidi Douglas and artist Nadine Kessler working on the creative exercises in the education kit. Students will be led through the exercises and supported in developing rich, detailed ideas about their future community.
If you are interested in having them visit your school to conduct a workshop, please contact us.
Get involved!
It's free to take part, it gives you great new lesson plans on important issues, and it allows your class to be part of a State-wide project. Register to take part in the project. It only takes 30 seconds. We'll send you the Fresh! education kit if you don't already have one, and pre-paid envelopes so you can send your students' work back to us. Come and be part of the Map of a Dream of the Future!
Download the kit: High-res version (14mb PDF) | Quick lower-res vxersion (1mb PDF)
Register your school
Register to take part! Please enter your details so we know you're on board and we can help you to put the kit into use. We will also send you prepaid envelopes so you can return your surveys to us for free.
If you have any questions or would prefer to register via email, contact us: fresh[at]tasregionalarts[dot]org.
The AMDF website will present students' stories and artistic creations using an interactive map of a future Tasmania. The map aims to communicate the students' fascinating ideas about climate futures in an intuitive way.
Each student is represented on the map by a community made up of imaginative future buildings. Visiting that student's settlement shows their ideas, stories and artworks.
Each community is placed on the map according to the type of future they'd like to see. For example, those who want a back-to-nature kind of future live close to one coast; those who want to see a greater use of energy and technology are on the other. Where ideas are popular, many communities will be placed side by side, forming towns and cities. The spread of settlements allows audiences to visualise the spread of young people's thinking about climate change.
The AMDF website will form a lasting resource of contemporary thinking about climate change. Each year, as new schools use the educational kits, new ideas and data will be added to the online environment, showing the change of thinking about climate change over time.
The AMDF installation will be presented as part of the Junction 2010 Australian Regional Arts Conference in Launceston, Tasmania.
It will be a gently swaying galaxy of native plants, and is intended to be a surreal and beautiful environment in its own right. It is a mashup of the traditionally ordered and formal conservatory garden with its hanging plants and water features, but also evokes futuristic floating cities and the collision between natural and highly engineered environments.
The installation is also a work of data visualisation: a huge three-dimensional graph of what young islanders think about the future. Each plant is a point on that graph, representing the thinking of one young Tasmanian. The x, y and z position of each plant is assigned according to data collected from Education Kits delivered to schools State-wide. Each student's plant is placed according to their engagement or disengagement, leaning towards a high or low energy future, an authoritarian or libertarian response to climate change.
Visitors to the installation will experience it as an immersive physical environment, surrounded by the play of light on water and mirrored reflections, the smell of soil and plants. Through the help of a printed guide, they can also read the installation as a sophisticated data-set that offers a fascinating overview of what young Tasmanians think about the future regarding climate change. It is literally a map of young people's dreams about the future.
About the Junction 2010 Conference
Junction 2010 is the seventh biennial Regional Arts Australia national conference, presented in partnership with Tasmanian Regional Arts and the host community Launceston. The Regional Arts Australia biennial conference is Australia’s most awaited and largest regional arts event. Held in different destinations across Australia, each conference is a unique blend of part conference part festival - all art - that reflect and celebrate the host community. Taking place in the beautiful city of Launceston, Tasmania from August 26–29, Junction 2010 delegates will engage in a stimulating and thought-provoking conference program and arts festival that celebrates, connects and challenges.
Contact
For further information about AMDF please contact us on: fresh[at]tasregionalarts[dot]org
About
AMDF was conceived by Associate Professor Elaine Stratford, a world expert in island studies, some of whose work focuses on how island communities are affected by and are responding to climate change. The project is part of her broader and ongoing initiative to develop an interface across island studies, community resilience and the arts. Elaine is currently Head of the School of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Tasmania.
Tasmanian Regional Arts (TRA) is the peak organisation for regional arts and community based arts in Tasmania.TRA builds vibrant communities through arts and cultural development. TRA works with artists, a significant branch network and a wide range of organisations and communities to support the development, presentation and promotion of the arts throughout Tasmania. Paul Jenkins, CEO, and Kate McDonald, project manager, have had sustained engagement with the project.
The project's lead artist is Nicolas Low. Nicolas has recently worked as Artistic Director of the National Young Writers' Festival, as a curatorial advisor to the Next Wave and This Is Not Art festivals, on the Sustainable Living Foundation's Future Cities Project, and has been commissioned to create new work and exhibit nationally. He is also currently responsible for Asialink's international literature residency and touring program.
The Education Kit has been conceived by Nicolas Low, Nadine Kessler, Heidi Douglas, Josie Hurst and Elaine Stratford. Tasmanian schools workshops and local exhibitions are led by Nadine and Heidi.
The online world and art installation are conceived and executed by Nicolas Low in collaboration with programmer Richard Procter, landscape architect Phil Smith, and the input and assistance of students from HIT Lab Tasmania and the School of Environment and Geography, University of Tasmania. Plant selection and advice for the installation comes from Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick; climate change psychologist and statistician Tim Cotter provides design and analysis of the project's statistical component.
The team gratefully acknowledges the input of members of its Project Advisory Group: Neil Cameron (theatre director, teacher, author and consultant), Sally Marsden (King Island Arts and Cultural Officer, and King Island Cultural Centre Coordinator), Dr Deb Malor ( Lecturer in History and Theory, School of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Tasmania), Dr Troy Ruffels ( Lecturer and Head of Photomedia, School of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Tasmania), Sarah Howell (visual artist and cultural producer), Anna Pafitis (educator and community engagement specialist), and Dr Martin Walsh (Lecturer and new media artist, Hunter Street School of Art, University of Tasmania).
Junction 2010
Junction 2010 is the seventh biennial Regional Arts Australia national conference, presented in partnership with Tasmanian Regional Arts and the host community Launceston. The Regional Arts Australia biennial conference is Australia’s most awaited and largest regional arts event. Held in different destinations across Australia, each conference is a unique blend of part conference part festival - all art - that reflect and celebrate the host community. Taking place in the beautiful city of Launceston, Tasmania from August 26–29, Junction 2010 delegates will engage in a stimulating and thought-provoking conference program and arts festival that celebrates, connects and challenges.
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