Portland Re-engagement Centre

One of the community partnerships which was initiated by Nikki Pevitt, the Arts Program Coordinator at the Julia Street Creative Space, was with the Re-engagement Centre. The students from the Re-engagement Centre along with the coordinator Chris Thomas, teachers Kara Young and Todd Barnes and volunteer Andrew Eade became actively involved in the making of the Sea Hammock. They did a mind blowing amount of work in a very short amount of time which I put down to truckloads of creativity and talent, great support and leadership from Chris, Kara, Andrew and Todd and a real enthusiasm for making something artistic for the community. 

Whilst making the hammock is the fairly pre-structured part of the project, creating artwork with the Students from the Re-engagement Centre was a more organic process driven by the students. Firstly to gage their artistic abilities and the group dynamics students tried a bit of drawing and tracing Upwelling Animals on plastic bags. This lead to the large 2mx2m plastic bag sculpture which also includes a little bit of the artist's recycled artwork from a previous plastic bag installation. We beach-combed for the next 3 - 4 weeks collecting flotsam and jetsam from Whites, Murrel's, Shelly and Bishop's head beaches.  There was a lot of plastic flotsam and jetsam on these beaches which look out towards the place where the Upwelling Event occurs. So students talked a bit on these trips about the effects of plastic on sea life, what toxins it releases into the oceans as it slowly breaks down, how that gets into animals and human systems and how it might mimmic little fish as its breaking down and get caught in the stomachs of local wildlife such as seals, penguins, birds etc. During one trip to Shelly beach a student called Miranda, was taking photos of some beach debris and came up with the idea of photographing the flotsam and jetsam and then collaging the photos onto cardboard which was cut in the shapes of seals, dolphins etc.   This led to one of the major projects by the students from the Re-engagement Centre.  Please see  - Steps to making the life-sized collaged sea animals below. 

Apart from these two projects, within the bigger project, the students and teachers from the Re-engagement Centre made at least half of the canope made of 12 pack rings for the hammock, measured all the rope used, made a tent for the tenticles project, and projected, drew, cut and painted all of the iridescent-painted canvas animals which are cable-tied to the underside of the hammock canope.  Please see the Youtube video of students Dav and Daerin making a 2x2m section of the sea hammock. Thanks Aaron for the filming. Making sections of the hammock was repetitive and frankly boring (as well as tough on the knees) but these guys made it seem like its fun. Also I did almost promise Andrew, who was volunteering his time to the Reengagement Centre, a plaque for his efforts in the making of the hammock. Not sure if he can ever be repaid. So this community partnership created the foundation and much of the major work for the hammock.  And I am really indebted to the students and teachers for the amazing, festive, artistic and humorous work they did for the overall project.

Steps to making the large collaged sea animals.

1. Shelby, Annabel and Alesha took photos of mainly plastic flotsam and jetsam collected by all the Reengagement students of local beaches.

2.  Rob,  David,  Miranda,  Lawannah,  Dan, Talia and Jenelle projected images onto cardboard of seals and dolphins and then they and others from Tuesday group cut them out.  Dav and Rob did much of the tracing and drawing of the animals

3. Everyone participated in the collaging of the animals with the photographs including Chris, Tod,  Kara and many more students such as Shelby, Jenelle, Daniel,  Sharon,  Jorden, Taya, Lawannah, Talia, and Tesharni.

4. Dylan and Jake made holes in the pieces and tied string to them as well as designed and crafted the red-net fish (at the same time) - multi-talented.

Concept by Miranda

Photos by Shelby,  Annabel and Alesha

Collaged Upwelling Animal made by many hands

Collaged Upwelling Animal made by many hands

Collaged Upwelling Animals made by many hands

Portland Re-Engagement Centre

"............through projects like yours (The Sea Hammock) the students are not just learning about art - they are learning team skills, improving their communication and also giving to the community  (in the form of the artwork for the Upwelling Festival) which has been so supportive of them through the Re-engagement Centre "

Chris Thomas - Coordinator of the Portland Reengagement Centre