Consequences

Very few actions are neutral. Most actions create impact or change that has to be dealt with.

8 March 2019

Last year I interpreted the big idea of Consequences through the lens of colony collapse disorder, and students constructed large bee sculptures with chicken wire and papier-mâché. As I found out over the duration of the project, chicken wire, whilst thin and flexible, can be quite challenging for 11-year-olds to manipulate, even with a good set of pliers! The sculptures worked out just fine and have since found a home flying high over the shelves of the library, but I endeavoured this year to try something a little less ambitious to draw connections between art and conservation.

Year 6s began this project researching bee pollination and colony collapse disorder. They learned how important bees are in pollinating many of the foods we eat and the economic value of pollination to the global food supply. As we learned, colony collapse disorder can have serious consequences for farmers, affecting the prices and availability of some of our favourite foods at the supermarket. Cherries, blueberries, apples, watermelon, squash… a long list of fruits, nuts, and vegetables depend on bee pollination. The makers of honey and beeswax are incredibly industrious creatures!

To reflect their understanding, students constructed collages of the various fruits and vegetables that bees pollinate. They composed their designs as loose transcriptions of a number of Paul Cézanne still life paintings, first drawing out the lines of the major shapes and then using those lines to guide them in laying down the base layer of their collage. They built their images using a variety of printed patterns and textures, including wood, honeycomb, floral designs à la William Morris, and some kaleidoscopic artworks of the bright and colourful corpses of another pollinator - butterflies - by contemporary artist Damien Hirst.

During the process of creating their collages, I encouraged students to build their images backwards, from background to middle ground to foreground. Some went out of their way to source very particular objects to include in their collages, including vases, bottles and florals. And I was happy to see some experimentation with the use of materials, such as the use of string to outline objects. This was for many of my kids their first foray into any sort of compositional exercise, and based on the results, I think there are quite a few good design eyes among the 6s. Some of these images look good enough to eat!