This school term we were lucky enough to be successful in our application to participate in a Creative Youth initiative, we took part in a BLAST program and our designated artist was the very talented Catherin Gannon. We decided to create a light installation around the theme of ‘Wellbeing’ which also integrated with our Amber Flag initiative and so our creative journey began.

Catherine’s artistry, support, expertise and the spirit of collaboration helped make this endeavor possible. Over the course of 6 weeks, she developed the children’s initial ideas and a plan was put in place to create small and large emoji’s expressing the children’s feelings, emotions and overall wellbeing. The children also wanted to create a Christmas tree in our light installation as it was being exhibited in December.

The infant classes used oil pastels on tissue paper and bound these around wire structures with tissue paper and glue. They also cut out and pasted card images for their lanterns. The senior room children spent days measuring, shaping and securing willow branches and making supports for our structures. They then soaked tissue paper with glue and covered their willow structures and when dry, decorated them accordingly. In the end we had a terrific Christmas tree and amazing emojis representing lots of different feelings and emotions.

On the evening of the immersive light experience many people from the community joined us to celebrate the children’s work and it was magical. This BLAST project served as a powerful reminder of the importance of wellbeing and self expression, through creativity. Here are some images of the process and end products of our creative journey.