Mirka Mora Soft Sculptures

After visiting the Mirka Mora exhibition at Heide Gallery late last year I was inspired to work with the art form of soft sculpture with the level 4 students.

Each year our school participates in the Banyule Festival Street Parade and as this year’s theme for the festival was “The Art Parade” it was a perfect vehicle to exhibit large soft sculptures.

The students were introduced to the art work of Mirka Mora and were equally fascinated with her dolls. They worked in groups of 4 or 5 to plan, design and create their own soft sculptures. They enjoyed using their imagination to incorporate their varied ideas into one creature.

Midway through the term the students were fortunate to go on an excursion to Heide Gallery to view the Mirka Mora exhibition. They were excited to see the art work “in real life” that they had previously only seen in books and on computer. For many of them, it was their first visit to an art gallery and it was a great learning experience. The realisation that art works can be created for a purpose and for a variety of audiences became clear to them.

In painting their soft sculptures they understood the importance of using strong clear colours to capture the attention of a large street audience. Size was also a factor and they rose to the challenge of enlarging their designs onto calico.

One parent offered her services to sew the two painted sides of each sculpture, then the students stuffed the edges with polyester filling and the bulk of the sculpture with scrunched newspaper. Rods were inserted into the back of the sculptures for display in the Street Parade.

The whole school focused on various aspects of Mirka Mora’s art during the term which culminated in nearly 200 of our students parading “the art of Mirka” down Burgundy Street in Heidelberg to great success.

The number of students from all year levels that came and told me they had visited Heide Gallery on weekends to see Mirka Mora’s art work indicated how enthusiastic they were about the topic and the art work they were producing in term one.

Finally we were all thrilled to receive a letter from Mirka Mora saying how pleased she was to receive photos of our art work and letters from the children and how honoured she was that we had chosen her art work as our theme for the Street Parade and our focus of work in term one.

The whole term was fantastic for making art come alive and meaningful for the students.

Pam Fordham
Art Teacher
Rosanna Golf Links Primary School
Suitable for Level 4