One of Australia's major galleries is bringing art to children in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art says its social outreach program is vital for under-resourced public schools that lack access to arts education, offering students a chance to engage with creativity.
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00:00These Dandenong Primary School students are getting a different view of the world.
00:07Most of the kids hadn't been to the city before and they saw the skyline of Melbourne and they said, wow, we're going to New York.
00:14They're visiting the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne as part of a long-running outreach program.
00:21For most of them, it's the first time they've been to an art gallery.
00:25We're really working directly with schools to try to make it as easy as possible to bring students in, but the barriers are huge.
00:33A lot of them can't afford to come into the city. It's very expensive.
00:37And if parents have got $20 that they might be able to spend, they might use it for other things, food and necessities, not just coming into an art gallery.
00:46Dandenong Primary School is one of the state's most culturally diverse schools, with 88% of students from non-English speaking backgrounds.
00:54Thousands of students have been through the program over the past 10 years.
00:5911-year-old Shree's first visit in prep left a huge impression.
01:03If you go into my house, there is so much artwork. I'm not sure how to say it, but I just had this rush to create artwork.
01:13Art is included in the school curriculum, but teaching art can be difficult for some schools and can fall to the bottom of the list when there are competing financial priorities.
01:24There are real problems with arts teaching in a number of Australian states.
01:29They're just not given enough importance and people see them as something that's kind of frilly and extra.
01:35Many of the regional communities we're working with in the primary space are losing their visual arts teachers and it's the science or the maths teachers that are taking over.
01:44Experts point to the social and emotional benefits of observing and creating art, but they also argue that there are practical skills to be learned.
01:54It teaches you a lot of things about material, it teaches you spatial relations, but it also teaches you things like experimenting, researching, taking risks.
02:05For some, the benefits are more intangible.
02:08You can feel the art here in your heart and it makes you feel rich.