Students produced a zine about recycling (on sustainable paper) with an eye-catching cover.

Expressive Arts staff are delighted with the success of the new and innovative creative activism paper, 139.333 Creativity in the Community, and proud to announce that it will be offered again at both Wellington and Auckland campuses in 2016.

Launched in 2015, the paper generated three groundbreaking and diverse student projects in its first year.  Staff are looking forward to building upon its success and taking it to new heights of innovative creative activism and creativity for social justice next year.

In 2015, one group of students at Wellington who worked in a student-centred pedagogical mode voted to use their project to confront rape culture. They delivered a thought-provoking yet also sensitive multimedia/theatre production and achieved a full house in the theatre lab venue (and we even had to turn people away – an incredible achievement for such a difficult topic). See more about their event at http://www.massey.ac.nz/news/?id=6662  Some of those students’ creative writing work that evolved out of the workshopping process has subsequently been published in Massive Magazine – see for example Lena Fransham’s ‘Blurred Words’ at http://www.massivemagazine.org.nz/blog/16926/blurred-words/, Tessa Calogaras’ ‘Ground Meat’ at http://www.massivemagazine.org.nz/blog/17193/ground-meat/ and Hannah Bridges’ two works – ‘Glitter’ at http://www.massivemagazine.org.nz/blog/17201/glitter/ and ‘For Libby’ at http://www.massivemagazine.org.nz/blog/17184/for-libby/

At Albany, students developed short films, music videos and a theatre performance in partnership with a nearby residential care facility, Aria Gardens, looking at issues associated with living with dementia.  See more at http://www.massey.ac.nz/news/?id=6652

Back in Wellington, a second student group was deeply concerned about environmental issues, and created awareness through a ‘Rubbish Monster’ art installation along with a zine offering practical solutions, which they planned, wrote, designed, produced and negotiated a deal to have delivered for free throughout Wellington city. The zine used slang to grab attention then offered tips that students could easily apply when flatting.  You can read their story at: http://www.massey.ac.nz/news/?id=6764 

“All in all we are delighted with the way that the paper has enabled a range of students to showcase the issues they care about through the channels that matter to them,” paper curriculum designer Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley said. “None of the students found the paper easy – dealing with the messy realities of actual issues, community partners, deadlines, real audiences, ethics and budgets, never is. But they also loved having the opportunity to put into practice the skills learned throughout their degree, and gain experience for their CVs.  They learned heaps – one student even said ‘I could write a dissertation on what I learned in this paper’ and many of them have been coming back for more, signing up to participate in extracurricular creative activism projects such as our forthcoming Climate Change Theatre Action event.”

Creativity in the Community (139.333) will be offered in first semester 2016 at both Albany and Wellington – see http://www.massey.ac.nz/paper/?p=139333 for more information.