BACKThe Rangitoto College Visual Arts Department is incredibly proud of our students’ success in the 2025 NZQA Level 3 and Scholarship examinations.
As well as successful Scholarship submissions in all media – Painting, Printmaking, Photography, and Design – including an Outstanding Scholarship award for Seungyeon (Jessica) Woo in Design, we are also proud to announce that Rangitoto College student Leen Murad achieved ‘Top in Subject’ with a national Top Subject Scholarship Award in Photography in 2025!
Leen received 24/24 for her Outstanding Scholarship submission with her body of work (below), which focused on the cause of Palestinian Liberation.
Her remarkable folio, as well as her Scholarship submission – eight pages exploring her research and artworks in-depth – both reflect her personal and authentic response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
Across the two years of her Level 2 and 3 Photography journey at the college, Leen committed her passion and dedication to this cause to a substantial artistic project – documenting countless rallies, working with a fellow family at the school of Palestinian refugees, and deeply engaging with issues relating to genocide, trauma, and the depiction of violence against others.
Highlighting family displacement and the loss of ancestral land, her work provides historical context from the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to the present-day occupation, grounding her art in the study of history. Utilising symbols of resistance, including Handala, the keffiyeh, the watermelon, and an orange orchard, also enables her work to educate us on the specifics of this rich culture under threat.
Leen’s main aim is to raise awareness and challenge viewers’ complicity and inaction: “How can a genocide take place right in front of our eyes and we stay silent?”
Leen continues her studies in photography and the visual arts at AUT and we are excited to see what she does next.
Paul Stevens | Head of Department, Visual Arts
