Visual Arts

Celebrating culture with the R16

Each week we meet, greet, share and explore movement, poetry and collage.

It sounds like a standard art project, but it’s goals are ambitious- to instil cultural pride, counter negative media representation and to encourage students from diverse African and Pacifica backgrounds to share an understanding of what their country and culture means to them.

Ihab and Sha have backgrounds in photography, design, performing art and community development and have been leading the project with knowledge and passion. I found out about their idea during an art project with Wyndham council and saw that it was a perfect fit for our school. They have been coming in their own time, each week for nearly a term.

The students have broken down what the “welcome to country” means and why we read it each week, what we know or remember about the countries that we are from and the languages our families speak. We’ve developed a greater understanding of our emotions and each other- exploring expression through photography, games, collage, spoken word and black out poetry.

The students are in the process of making a zine (a photocopied handmade magazine) that includes images and ideas about the wonderful places that they come from- Ghana, South Sudan, Ethiopia, New Zealand, Samoa and the Cook Islands.

Make sure you get a copy as soon as it’s available!