ASLA conference (2) and Richard Woldendrop

I’m posting this at the ASLA conference and I’ve just been listening to an extremely good presentation by Mark Treadwell. He is one of these polymaths who gave a range of examples of how, in the last  5 years, there has been a paradigm shift in society with the emergence of the internet. He argued that learning is the key factor in our schools but that schools are not necessarily geared towards learning. He cited the new New Zealand curriculum which focuses on a new approach to learning, which, for example, gets students to think about their emotions. Mark emphasised that we need to take a new approach not only to schools but also to school libraries. Get on to his websites – and yes, he is selling books – but there is a wide range of superb ideas.

One of the visits (pre-conference of course) which was very worthwhile, was to the Art Galley of Western Australia . The current exhibition is by Richard Woldendorp. It is a series of photographs, taken from the air and the exhibition, according to the gallery, ‘established a fresh visual vocabulary for the Australian landscape’. The photographs are stunning and at first often look abstract, until you look closer and see, for example, trees on a sand dune. Absolutely stunning.