TASMANIAN MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY’S 2023 CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL
Earlier this term students in Year 5/6 were offered the opportunity to participate in designing and creating a banner as part of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s 2023 Children’s Festival. Students were opted into the project were willing to use one of their break times a week to come together to collaboratively create the banner with the theme ‘Twists and Turns’. At the early stages of our project, students were given the opportunity to share ideas about what this theme meant to them and how it could be represented through the visual arts. Common themes of animals and our natural world came out of our sharing and we collectively agreed that this would be something that we could represent. Each student had a chance to work independently on their own animal design, while also collaborating on negotiating colour scheme, space and interacting with other designs on the banner.
Throughout the process, students actively challenged, questioned and extended one another in a respectful way. They also encouraged, complimented, affirmed and celebrated the skills and talents of one another and as someone who tried to provide as much autonomy to students throughout the process to make something completely designed by them, it was these interactions that I love listening to as it reinforces how capable and connected our learners are, especially when engaging in something they are invested in and passionate about. I want to take the time to recognise the involved students and the efforts that they contributed, well done to Ella, Alice, Hannah, Bailee, Maya, Bella, Elsa, Peyton, Zoey and Melody. We also thank Mrs Bloomfield for her time supporting students to complete the project.
Our completed banner was displayed among others created from around Hobart in the Lift Off! Festival over the 4-7 October. The banner will be sent back to us to be proudly displayed in our school grounds, keep your eyes open for where it pops up!
Sophie Sheehan
AST


