Kauri Park School - Container Art Project

Kauri Park School Container Art project is an exploration into how art making, in particular graphic drawing and graffiti art, can be used to express and encourage children’s learning on ngahere ora (forest health) specific to the pathogens kauri dieback (Phytophthora agathidicida) and myrtle rust (Austropuccinia psidii) two pathogen species affecting native forests in Aotearoa New Zealand. This project followed on from the  Mobilising for Action  research project  Toitū te Ngahere  - Art in schools for forest health, that occurred in 2022. This project facilitated a child led enquiry into ngahere health. It followed the subsequent interest of teachers and students in the closure of their local Kauri Park Reserve as a result of kauri dieback. 

“The only way we have of knowing if a child has any appreciation of a natural organism is if he talks and/or writes about it, paints, uses some craft and some dramatic representation and so on… As the child examines the material, and provided he continues to look, he will understand it intuitively long before he is able to rationalise about its form and function.” Elwyn Richardson 1965

Marie (Toitū te Ngahere) bought in a kauri dieback virtual ngahere experience. The children experienced the ngahere in VR that showed kauri dieback spores travelling through the roots

Painting the Container

The container was painted over five days with Kat and Christina (Toitū te Ngahere) starting the outline and the children painting the rest. The children put in heaps of mahi (work) and loved having turns on the scaffolding.

Kat, Christina and Isabella (Christina's daughter) started on the final outline, light grey for the dead side and charcoal grey for the living side. A few of the children outlined their own drawings.

Scroll down for close up sections of the container art and before and after shots.