Moama Lights

Twenty-five students from our Year 9 Personal Best class have taken great delight in designing and decorating lantern artworks for this year’s Moama Lights spectacular.

This year the class has been working closely with the Bridge Art Project (BAP), and saw the opportunity to be involved with Moama Lights as a chance to further extend and enhance their learning around protecting our planet.

The Bridge Art Project in Moama is poised to become an iconic tourism destination for the Murray River region. Once completed, it will showcase acclaimed Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, as well as local Indigenous visual storytellers and emerging artists of all backgrounds to tell the story of humankind in Australia through contemporary art.  

St Joseph’s College visual arts & communications teacher Allison O’Brien said the Moama Lights lantern project aligned beautifully with their Personal Best studies and their community partnership with the BAP.

“As part of our work with the Bridge Art Project, we are looking at what needs to be healed and protected and who needs to be truly seen and listened to,” Ms O’Brien said.

“In decorating these lanterns, our students drew inspiration from the active rehabilitation of Indigenous food, fibres, flora and fauna and focused on the theme of healing creation and restoring history, both Indignous and untold histories.

“This is a theme of the St Joseph’s College Living Justice - Living Peace charter which aligns so closely with the aims of both the Bridge Art Project and Moama Lights.”

Students from seven local schools participated in the Moama Lights colouring-in competition, incorporating the activity into their art classes, or as an extension of their Indigenous history discussions. From there, each school selected their favorite 25 creations, and those students were then asked to decorate a Moama Lights lantern. 

240 lanterns, all individually decorated by Echuca Moama students, will adorn the Horseshoe Lagoon boardwork for the duration of the world-class light and sound show which runs from July 31 to August 21.