Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Big Basket


Ararat Regional Art Gallery celebrated Children’s Week on Tuesday 25 October 2011 with a community art event leading to the creation of ‘The Big Basket’. Around 100 school children from Ararat, Stawell and the wider regional community participated in a one-day workshop led by basket maker, Cherree Densley, and held at Alexandra Hall, Ararat.

The theme of the project, ‘We’re all in the same basket’, aimed to maximise participation and encourage cooperation amongst children across a range of ages and abilities. The outcome of this intensive day of creativity was the creation of a one and a half square metre woven basket constructed from hay and wool and surrounded by a multitude of grass dolls. The dolls were individually created by participating children and placed around the basket to reflect the theme of community unity.

Now completed, ‘The Big Basket’ will tour to participating and host schools that will have the opportunity to create more dolls, ultimately representing hundreds of children from the community. The basket is presently on display at the Skene Street School in Stawell and will visit other schools in the region in the coming months. Following its tour, the basket will be exhibited at the Ararat Regional Art Gallery in February 2012 as part of a program to complement the 30th anniversary presentation of `Floating Forest’ - a basketry-based installation by the late American artist, Douglas Fuchs. Ararat Regional Art Gallery's Children's Week event was presented in partnership with the Victorian Government's Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
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