The Stories That Connect Us
The Stories That Connect Us shares historical and contemporary stories from around the City of Melton's waterways in printed illustrated decals that come to life when viewed on a device. This project is situated around Lake Caroline, a site that is visited by all ages of the local community for exercise and recreation.
Students from Creekside K-9 College observed and interviewed visitors to the lake to gather special stories and place based events to help them investigate what makes the lake a unique place to visit.
After their initial investigations, students worked collaboratively in groups to create illustrated stop motion animations and decals that visualise their community's stories. Alongside the animations, the student's voices recount the stories that inspired them, creating a covid-safe oral history opportunity, that can be experienced through augmented-reality.
Learning Design:
The Learning Design for this project focused on developing skills for future employment pathways, growing student confidence and connection to community, as well as engaging with and applying past learning in ways that enabled the greatest accessibility to students of all abilities.
The workshops respond to Visual Arts (9-10) curriculum
Students worked through these workshops as if they were in industry, receiving a brief for the project and working collaboratively in a team to develop a response. The use of a brief developed their literacy for a crucial industry skill and scaffolded required learning in later VCE curriculums, giving them a taste of what it is like to work in the Arts or Design.
Students conducting initial research at Lake Caroline
The art outcomes were student lead - putting the student in the driver's seat. With direction from the LUCIANO and their Art teacher Ms. Nolan, students were guided toward creative outcomes fit for the project and public display. Through the student centred focus, students took ownership of the exhibition, resulting in a sense of pride and increased public interest in the project as they share their involvement with others and direct them to the lake to see their work.
Students had previously worked with stop motion animation in Year 8 Media. Through consultation with their teacher, it was discovered that the students felt discouraged by the lack of further application of this skill and had developed some resentment to arts based learning as they could not see a use in the real world. By integrating this previously developed skill into the presentation of the work, students saw how to apply their learning outside of the classroom, the possibility of future creative pathways and further refine their abilities or explore new directions with animation.
Students viewing their installed artworks