Becoming Educultural: Collaborative Projects in the Arts.

Abstract

Manurewa Intermediate students were given an experience only the arts can provide as they collaboratively researched, responded to and celebrated a school mural project. The mural project was initiated by Shane Hansen through the Principal Iain Taylor and coordinated by Dianne Macdonald, a Professional Learning Leader at Manurewa Intermediate School. The thrust of the project: To paint an artwork environment that told the school’s story ‘Listen to Culture’. The mural, titled Pumanawatanga, which is 2.4 metres high and 20 metres long, was designed and painted by thirty Year 7 and Year 8 students in Terms 3 and 4 in 2009, in collaboration with local New Zealand artist Shane Hansen. The underpinning aim of
this project was to support students’ learning in arts education through a focus on ‘culture’. Shane’s influences include his Maori, Chinese and European heritage, the environment, his family and other New Zealand artists such as Gordon Walters and Dick Frizzell. Shane draws from a world of bold colours and what has been described as an optimistic post-modern playfulness.