Christchurch students attend Keep in Touch (KIT) Day with a focus on print-making art at the Art Gallery.

During 2024, Christchurch students had the opportunity to attend a KIT Day at the Christchurch Art Gallery in the city centre.

This KIT Day involved a tour of an exhibition by Cora Allan at the gallery. Her artwork depicted her travel around various bodies of water within New Zealand. It explored the initial encounters between Māori and Pakeha around Aotearoa. While looking at her artwork, students were allowed to sketch patterns that they found interesting from Cora Allan's work.

Students were then taken to the education centre, where they could create their artworks using watercolour paint, pens and light-sensitive paper based on the pieces they had seen in the exhibition.

The last part of the day involved Deaf, blind artist David Choi (a previous student at van Asch) telling his story of how he became a well-renowned artist. He shared his experiences as a young boy and gave students advice on striving to reach their dreams. We were all so lucky to see some of his fantastic pen drawings, which the children loved; the detail in his work was incredible. David then allowed the students to ask him questions about his learning, art, and experiences. It was a precious experience for our students, and they thoroughly enjoyed listening to David and hearing about how his art developed.

The students had a fantastic time during this KIT Day; lots of connections were made, friendships developed, and new experiences occurred, alongside meeting David, who was an inspirational guest for the day.