Dangerous Art – Artist in School Project
For the last few weeks I’ve been heading off to Rainbow, a small-ish town in the Mallee in far Western Victoria to participate in an Artist in Schools project. It feels quite remote, way out in the wheat belt, but its great to be in a different environment. I was invited to be part of the project by the art teacher, Belinda Eckermann who led getting a grant from Creative Victoria to fund the project, with a view to creating some sort of kinetic sculpture with the year 9 and 10 students.
My original plan was to make some dangerous art concept excerpt below:
Art can be dangerous, it can challenge stereotypes, defy the status quo and as Banksy put it “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”.
Mechanical and kinetic art can be dangerous in a very real and literal way, fingers can be squashed, heads cracked, limbs entangled.
Life on a farm or in the bush or as a teenager in a country town can also be dangerous, skateboard or quad bike accidents, driving too fast, larking about with friends… I’m sure you can think of many more…
…we will find some objects, from our homes or junkyards or farms that have some connection to a dangerous or risky incident in our lives, and with these objects, make a series of kinetic sculptures that somehow tells or connects to stories of some of these dangerous moments of life in the country, of kids becoming adults…
Pleasingly, the students have got excited about an idea, not mine though, so we’ve gone off on a tangent, it’ll still be dangerous, housed in an old gas tank cage at the Oasis, a transformed arts precinct in the town, but they wanted something beautiful, something to be proud of so it will be a garden scene, kinetic, built of old found farm and other objects, and other elements in progress. Still got a month or two of building, can’t wait to see what the students come up with…
Photo above is of a student flower head experiment made with plough shares
With thanks to Creative Learning Partnerships – A Victorian Government Initiative
