Hello, I'm Jelena
I am an artist and educator based in Wellington, New Zealand. I work as a Lecturer at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, School of Design Innovation.
My teaching focuses on processes as a way of thinking rather than simply producing outcomes. I am interested in how students develop ideas through iterations, repetition, and experimentation.
My work explores current and emerging approaches to teaching & learning, including the integration of new technologies and interactive formats. This space is a collection of thoughts, processes, and teaching moments. It is an ongoing archive rather than a finished statement.
I write my blog with the assistance of AI, which I use primarily to support structure, clarity, and fluency, as English is not my first language. This process enables me to communicate my ideas more effectively while ensuring that the conceptual content and intellectual direction remain entirely my own. I maintain academic integrity by retaining full responsibility for the meaning, critical thinking, and argumentation expressed in my work, using AI only as a supportive tool rather than a substitute for authorship.
© 2026 Jelena Rukavina Vuckovic. All rights reserved.
The content, writing, reflections, and materials published through Teaching in Layers are the intellectual property of Jelena Rukavina Vuckovic unless otherwise stated. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, or used without prior written permission.
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I'm always looking for new and exciting opportunities. Let's connect.
I did not arrive at teaching through theory first. I arrived through practice, through drawing, through watching students hesitate, through noticing how learning actually unfolds in the studio. Over time, I began to understand something simple but fundamental. I do not believe learning happens in straight lines.
It happens in layers through repetition, hesitation, discovery, and return. In my teaching, drawing is not just an outcome. It is a way of thinking.
Students do not begin with complete clarity. They begin with fragments, marks, ideas, and uncertainties. My role is not to correct these fragments, but to help them see what is already forming. I teach through making, not as a method of production, but as a method of inquiry. To draw is to test an idea. To fail is to see differently. To repeat is to understand.
In the studio, learning is visible. It exists in process, not just in submission.
I value experimentation over perfection, process over product, questions over answers, because creativity does not emerge from control. It emerges from permission. Permission to explore. Permission to be uncertain.Permission to develop a voice over time.
In my studio, this often begins with a single line, uncertain and searching, and grows through critique, iteration, and conversation. My teaching is not fixed. It evolves with each cohort, each conversation, each mistake. This is not just teaching. This is a practice of observing, adjusting, and learning alongside my students. This is Ako pedagogy in practice.
Because learning, like drawing, is never finished.