Dr Naomi Zouwer

Position

Lecturer - Creative Arts Teacher Education

Contact details

E: naomi.zouwer@canberra.edu.au
T: +61 2 6206 8906
L: Building 6 Room D38

Biography

Naomi Zouwer is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Education and a cross-disciplinary visual artist, researcher, and arts educator based in Canberra/Kambri. As an artist educator, she is committed to project-based learning beyond the classroom, developing programs for museums, galleries, the natural environment, and community settings that foster playful, open-ended exploration and embodied engagement with creative learning.

Her research draws on new materialist concepts and an artist-led pedagogy grounded in reciprocity, care, and creative inquiry. In collaboration with cultural institutions and galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia, where she developed their participatory and interdisciplinary approaches to arts learning. Naomi has presented her research in national and international conferences, as well as in peer-reviewed journals on art pedagogy, creative practice, and material culture.

Within the University, Naomi has held leadership positions supporting curriculum innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and student experience. She mentors emerging artist-educators and currently supervises PhD candidates with a focus on creative methodologies. As the coordinator of the Creative Arts units (primary education), she designs learning experiences that connect students with leading national and international practitioners and organisations, including Canberra Youth Theatre, QL2 Dance Company, the National Gallery of Australia, and the National Film and Sound Archive. She initiated and led immersive study tours to Finland in collaboration with academics and cultural institutions such as the Art Museum of Kuopio (KUMMA) and the Art Museum of Jyväskylä.

Naomi’s creative practice encompasses drawing, printmaking, painting, and textiles, exploring cultural heritage, belonging, and the social significance of everyday objects, as well as the transmission of personal and collective stories through material form. She has exhibited widely and been recognised in national art prizes. Naomi completed her PhD in Art and Design at the Australian National University in 2019, following a Graduate Diploma in Education and a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) at the University of Newcastle.