Tellin’ Country continues on Straddie

I am stoked to be back on beautiful North Stradbroke Island to deliver some more school holiday workshops. Tellin’ Country is a digital art program that engages Indigenous kids to create work that reflect their country.

Salt Water Murri’s, a local Indigenous art gallery, had already been working on the theme “After the burn” and we decided to concentrate on this topic as well. The island was struck by lightning and fire engulfed the island early this year. Now, three months on, there is new growth and the island is getting its beautiful colour back.

I brought along three canvases and the kids painted the island from different angles. With quite a lot of hesitance, we then painted the lightning bolt and the island up in flames until the canvas was blacked out. We recorded this process on an iPad, taking still photographs each 20 seconds, which produced a stop motion animation of the canvas’ transformation.

Check out the stop motion animation : Straddie burn

Today we will revive the canvas by painting back the original scene and adding extra colour and new growth. During this process we also get the participants to interview each other on the iPads and talk about what the fire meant for the environment and how it made them feel. The canvases will become a part of the Salt Water Murri’s display at Cairns Indigenous Art Fair and the stop motion animation and interviews will be added to the Our Dreaming exhibition in kuril dhagun and included in the State Library’s digital collection.