Artist in Residence – Philippa Blair
Philippa was born in Christchurch in 1945 and attended Rangi Ruru from 1961 – 1963. Influenced by artists ranging from Jackson Pollock to Kandinsky and Len Lyre, she began exhibiting in New Zealand and Australia after 1969. Now she has exhibited widely internationally for the past 25 years with over 80 solo exhibitions and participation in over 150 group exhibitions to her credit.

Philippa, who lives in Venice , California , returned to New Zealand earlier this year for an exhibition of her work and to take up a residency at Rangi Ruru.

Philippa's residency involved a project based on different locations in and around Christchurch . She worked through the whole process of her art-making from documenting her journeys around the city through a series of photographs, which were the starting point to drawings, deconstructing maps, working back over these with wet media through to vibrant paintings on canvas.

Art students visited Philippa in her studio regularly, often with a 10 minute visit at the beginning of a lesson ending when the bell sounded at the end of the period! She worked closely with Year 10 students as they made their own personal journeys based on structure exemplified in her practice.

Philippa also ran an intensive day workshop which was attended by 36 Rangi students as well as staff, members of the community and students from neighbouring schools. At this, she worked “hands on” with participants as they produced their work. It was a fantastic experience for young artists.

Philosopher in Residence – Clemency Williams
Clemency, a Rangi old girl (1991 – 1995) discovered a discipline that combined her love of dead languages and her mathematical studies whilst studying in her fourth year at the University of Canterbury . It was then she began her pursuit of ancient science and philosophy.

She won a Fullbright Scholarship to travel to Brown University in the United States to undertake a six year PhD programme in the History of Mathematics Department. It was here she wrote her dissertation “Eclipse Theory in the Ancient World”, and graduated in May 2005.

At Rangi Ruru, philosophising through discussion as a thinking skill strategy has been a tenet of the Gifted and Talented Programme for the past six years. It seemed a natural progression therefore towards enlisting the expertise of Clemency Williams as Rangi Ruru's current Philosopher in Residence.

For the past term, Clemency has guided students in an intellectually rigorous manner to: critically appraise ideas (one's own and others'), encourage open debate with a focus on current events to show the importance of philosophical debate for getting to the heart of crucial issues, and to introduce the students to great philosophical thinkers, their ideas and the chasms that can exist between particular positions:
   

• Are we really free? Determinism vs Libertarianism
• Is love selfish? Altruism vs egoism
• Are there many realities or just one?
• Does Science give us real knowledge?
• Artificial Intelligence – Can machines think? Is the mind like a program?
• Bioethics – What are the issues and what should be the guidelines?
• Political Philosophy – Who should make the rules? And then, how should they be controlled?
• Philosophy of Identity – Are the mind and brain one and the same thing?