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Zart Extra Term 3 2010

Our Place: Drouin

Drouin Primary School

Wherever you live the natural and man-made surroundings will have some influence on who you are and on the community and culture around you. These aspects are worthy of discussion and exploration.
Students in Grade 5/6 at Drouin Primary School were asked to reflect on their life and place within the town of Drouin.

Drouin is located 100km east of Melbourne in West Gippsland. Drouin Primary School has approximately 200 students of which 15% are Koorie. We have a strong relationship with our Koorie families, signing a partnership agreement with them in 2009 that sees our school curriculum embrace the Koorie culture.

In response to this our Grade 5/6 looked at the work of aboriginal artist Sally Morgan and how her work reflects her relationship with her country.
Students listed the main aspects of her work, namely her use of bright colour, bold design and stylized shapes. In an effort to better understand her work students worked in pairs to reproduce a Sally Morgan design of their choice using collage.
Our main project was to use Sally’s print titled “My Place” as inspiration to create a wall hanging based on the students’ relationship with Drouin. 

There was a great deal of discussion between the students as to what living in Drouin meant to them and how Drouin might be perceived by visitors. Finally the students decided on seven aspects of Drouin on which to base their design.

1. View of Mt. Baw Baw
2. Civic Park – Drouin
3. Drouin’s floral emblem – The Ficifolia       
4. Dairy Industry
5. Natural bushland  
6. Koorie population
7. Heritage listed Administration Building

Students drew and combined many ideas until final designs were established. The Wall Hanging was divided into six panels surrounded by a snake. Each panel was made separately using felt and Supertac on a hessian background, and then all the panels were sewn onto polycotton with the snake as a border.

The students are extremely proud of their work and the Wall Hanging will become a vibrant and important display in our new senior building. However the process of the children really thinking about what Drouin means to them as a place to live was the most significant benefit of this project. It highlighted for the non-Koorie students the relationship you can have with where you live.

Robyn Francis
Visual Art Teacher
Drouin Primary School

 

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Key words: Zart Extra, newsletter, article, school projects, teacher resource, whole school, community, felt, textiles, collage