Creativ-tea: Conversations about the making and mentoring of art with Amy Atkinson and Varda Nisar

This event is the second in a series of conversations with Art Education scholars from Concordia all about the art of learning, making and teaching art. Join Amy Atkinson, a Ph.D Candidate at Concordia in Art Education, an artist and a secondary art teacher as she talks with art researchers, art educators and art students about making and mentoring: how art is taught, how art is learned and all the creativ-tea in between.

This iteration's guest is Varda Nisar. Varda is an art educator and Ph.D candidate at Concordia in Art History.

How can you participate? Attend in person (note, we can accommodate up to 30 people comfortably) or online by registering for the Zoom webinar or watching live on YouTube.

Have questions? Send them to info.4@concordia.ca

Amy Atkinson is a Ph.D. Candidate at Concordia in Art Education exploring excellence within the art teacher voice. Amy serves as the co-editor for the Canadian Art Teacher Journal, visual art course developer for Ontario Virtual School and is a member of the Art Education Graduate Association. She has a BA from U of T in Art and Art History and a Masters in International Education from USF. Complementing her studies is an artistic practice exploring sustainability and new materialities through a feminist lens. Her work is shown in Canada and internationally. Amy also serves as a secondary art teacher, a mentor, a tutor and a workshop developer for the visual arts subject.

Varda Nisar (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in the Art History Department in the Faculty of Fine Arts. She has been actively involved in art education and community outreach in her former role as the founder of a children’s art festival in Karachi and later as the Head of Educational Programming for the Karachi Biennale.

She was an Arthink South Asia Fellow for 2015-16 Fellow and worked with the Spark Arts for Children as part of her secondment. In 2021, she organized and convened a Speaker Series titled (Art+Micro)History: Contemporary Artistic Voices from the South, which focused on drawing attention to the specific concerns and artistic modes of resistance in Pakistan.

Her current doctoral research focuses on the role museums in Pakistan play in nation-building by positioning themselves within the global political dynamics.