Description
Push/pull: the generative role of constraint in creative practice
The theme of the 2026 VAESA Conference explores how distinct constraints can shape and inspire creative output. As educators and creatives, we often work within the constraints of time, resources, curriculum objectives, and budgets. Creativity often thrives when it is, paradoxically, defined by certain parameters or constraints. Rather than limiting possibilities, these boundaries can foster innovation and problem-solving, providing a framework within which ideas can flourish.
Join us for a captivating keynote speech by renowned artist, writer, and educator Roy Ananda, as he explores the generative role of constraint in creative practice. In the afternoon, immerse yourself in studio-based workshops led by professional artists and experienced lecturers from Adelaide Central School of Art, including Jess Mara, James Dodd and Johnnie Dady.
Lunch and morning tea will be provided, with vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options available.
We warmly invite you to connect with fellow educators over networking drinks and snacks at 4:30 PM, proudly sponsored by the Adelaide Central School of Art.
Keynote Speaker: Roy Ananda
Image: Roy Ananda, 'The Apparitionist', Exhibition Install at Floating Goose, Oct 8 2026, by Sam Roberts Photography
Studio Based Workshops
This workshop is suitable for both beginner and intermediate skill level.
Participants will be guided though an informative painting session which focuses on techniques used to create a realist transparent object. Participants will work from a source image provided and develop their painting on a coloured ground. We will discuss the importance of tone, colour relationships and the use of edges to create a solid three-dimensional representation of our subject. Please bring an apron.
Image; Jess Mara's oil spaiting studies, courtesy fo the artist.
This is a fantastic project to engage students in the exciting realms of STEM, STEAM, drawing, and abstraction, serving as a hands-on activity that ignites creativity. Participants construct a simple drawing machine from a basic motor, counterweight, batteries, and a support structure. The legs are crafted from Textas, creating beautiful marks as the object "dances" across the surface of the paper. This is an energetic project that yields quick actions and outcomes, perfect for Primary and Middle School classrooms. Jimmy Dodd has worked as an artist and educator for more than twenty years, regularly undertaking residencies in schools of all kinds.
Image: Neo workshop with James Dodd. Photography: Nat Rogers
This workshop offers a practical approach to realising three-dimensional objects in space. Through a series of drawings, you will envisage objects through your mind's eye and be encouraged to inhabit the space you are creating. Johnnie will share practical techniques to capture complex perspectives in an intuitive manner, without the need to draw form observation. This approach is ideal for quickly capturing ideas, architectural features, and forms on a spatial plane.
Image: Johnnie Dady, Concept sketches for 'Tuneless Whistling', Contemporary Art Centre of SA public art installation.
Please select the workshop you wish to attend at the checkout.
Adelaide Central School of Art is an independent, not-for-profit Institute of Higher Education. In addition to our degree program, we provide short courses and intensives for adults and teens of all experience levels. We offer secondary school workshops, tours and talks as well as PD opportunities for art educators. ACSA is a leader in art education, supporting the future of arts learning in schools and the broader community.
Lineup
Keynote Speaker: Roy Ananda
Roy Ananda is a visual artist, writer, and educator practicing on Kaurna Country (Tarndanya/Adelaide Plains). His objects, drawings, installations, texts, and videos variously celebrate popular culture, play, process, and the very act of making. Since 2001 he has exhibited prolifically around Australia and since 2004 has lectured in drawing and sculpture at Adelaide Central School of Art. Ananda’s solo projects have included A is for Anvil (2006) at West Space (Melbourne), The Devourer (2013) at the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, and Slow crawl into infinity (2014) at the Samstag Museum of Art (Adelaide). His work has been included in such significant survey exhibitions as Primavera (2004) at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney), the Australian Drawing Biennial (2004) at the Drill Hall Gallery (Canberra), and the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Divided Worlds at the Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide). In 2017, Ananda completed a post-graduate research degree at the University of South Australia with a specific focus on the intersection of pop-culture fandom and contemporary art practice. He was the subject of the 2021 South Australian Living Artist Publication, published by Wakefield Press.
Jess Mara
Jess Mara is an Adelaide based painter. She received her Bachelor of Visual Art (honours) in 2006 from Adelaide Central School of Art and has been actively exhibiting since. Selected solo exhibitions including Bundle, (Praxis ART Space) These Four Walls, (Floating Goose Studio) and Some Place Near, (Hill Smith Gallery). Jess has been a finalist in numerous competitions/awards notably, The Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award at Bega Valley Regional Gallery in 2018. She was the Winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2019 Kennedy Art Prize for her painting Embrace (Self Portrait with son). Jess was commissioned by the City of Adelaide to complete a portrait of Mary Lee as part of their Honouring Women in Leadership series. This painting was unveiled in 2024 and is now hanging in the Council Chamber in the Adelaide Town Hall. Jess has been lecturing in the BVA and Short Course Programs at Adelaide Central School of Art since 2011. She teaches in both the drawing and painting departments. She has also presented workshops for VAESA (Visual Arts Educators in South Australia) and completed a residency/ hosted workshops in schools.
James Dodd
James Dodd has exhibited widely across Australia in artist run, publicly funded and commercial spaces. His work traverses (and collapses) the boundaries between visual street culture, alternative uses of urban space and existing gallery conventions. Whilst pursuing a practice that has painting as a constant, James explores built structures, mobile objects, DIY technology and a plethora of other variants as components of his outcomes. James lectures with us at Adelaide Central School of Art and also regularly pursues projects with school and community groups across Australia. He is particularly passionate about working with regional youth and disadvantaged audiences. James is represented by Hugo Michell Gallery in Adelaide and Backwoods Gallery, Melbourne. Photo: Sam Roberts Photography
Johnnie Dady
Johnnie Dady is an artist and lecturer who trained in both the UK and Australia. His practice is interdiciplinary, combining sculpture, drawing, set design and architecture. He has lectured with Adelaide Central School of Art for several decades and has helped shape our rigourous approach to studio-based teaching. Johnnie’s practice is deeply concerned with the poetry of the making event. His particular interest in drawing eventually led to work in both 3-D and 2-D, using hybridising strategies to explore drawing as ‘object’ in space. He has explored the possibilities of working at architectural scale, seeking to mutate the design process by realising ‘propositional drawings’ in real space at actual scale; the proposition becoming the real. Johnnie has worked on projects in both visual art and design through the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia, Flinders University and Monash University. Since 1983 he has had fifteen solo exhibitions, numerous group exhibitions and has developed performances, site specific projects and collaborative works. Dady has received Art Direction and Production Design awards in Film and has undertaken major public sculpture and design commissions. In 2001 he was granted the Australia Council London Studio residency and awarded a mid-career fellowship by Arts South Australia. In 2006 he was granted the Australia Council Rome studio residency.
Agenda
- 10:00 am - 10:20 am
Registration and Morning tea
- 10:30 am - 11:30 am
Welcome address
Acknowledgement of Country Welcome to ACSA - Penny Griggs Opening Speaker - TBC VAESA address - VAESA President Lindsey Crowe
- 11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Keynote adress: Roy Ananda
- 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
Lunck break
Lunch and morning tea will be provided, with vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options avialable.
- 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Studio Workshops
- 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Networking Drinks and Nibbles
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
