Sunshine Coast Council - Sister Cities and Festuri multicultural festival

Australia Day by the beach was the setting for the Festuri festival after it was washed out back in October. Art4place artists joined with thousands of others for the festival; but were there to create artworks on behalf of the Sunshine Coast Council's Sister Cities Association. The art works celebrated their association with our Chinese Sister city of Jingdezhen and our Friendship city of Xiamen.

The theme was “Dragons” and we did all sorts of art activities, mostly with children, which created dragons of all shapes and sizes. 

Children painted and attached scales to a 7m long calico dragon which had a fabulous and colourful head, and then carried it down to and along the beach. It caused quite a stir!

Jim had prepared a dragon on a board and children (and adults) wrote their name on the scale and then painted the scale as well – it was great for big and small kids alike and was a really interactive and colourful piece.

Kim had made dozens of clay dragons that children could paint and either take home; or leave to be washed and recycled and painted over again.  

Noela created dragon puppets and headbands to be coloured in, cut and made.

Christine, Barry and Fiona helped out a lot! It was a great celebration and the children learned about sister cities and friendship cities and basically enjoyed making all the different dragons.

art4place at Festuri and Bunya Dreaming January 2011

A number of art4place artists were to carry out dragon themed artworks at the Festuri event on 10 October 2010 - but that event was washed out by rain and severe winds.

Festuri, a multicultural celebration, is now to take place on 26 January 2011 and 6 art4place artists (Christine, Jim, Noela , Kim, Fiona and Barry) will be carrying out a range of dragon themed art, mainly with children, on behalf of the Sunshine Coast Council's (SCC) Sister Cities Association.

Why dragons - because of the links between SCC and Xiamen and Jingdezhen in China. The art event will run from 1-4pm and will create a temporary sense of place relating to the China sister cities. We will record the day and share some of the highlights on the blog.

Last year art4place (fomerly Artsite) contributed to Bunya Dreaming 2010 by helping with the design of the larger artworks on the Baroon site.

This year Beverly Hand, the coordinator of the Bunya Dreaming Indigenous gathering, has invited art4place to attend the gathering and work with children and their parents to create small ephemeral art pieces. The Bunya Dreaming gathering is set down for 29 January 2011 at Baroon Pocket Dam (9am to 7pm).

Up to 9 art4place artists have indicated they will attend (Edith-Ann, Jim, Kim, Tracey, Rob, Noela, Fiona,  Barry and Christine); and, in two shifts, will run an art tent where children etc can create art pieces from sticks, grasses, leaves, Bunya nuts etc gathered from the site. Pieces will be constructed using biodegradable glues, twine and paint. We are not sure what will emerge but in the main the art will focus on four local Indigenous totems: King Parrot, python, Wedge Tail Eagle and goanna. No doubt the Bunya nut and tree will also feature. Pieces created may become part of a temporary installation - creating place that tells a story.

We will record the day and hope to share some of the highlights of the art on this blob.