Hello welcome to my Blog

Mezze is widely served in the Greek and Middle eastern world. An assortment of little dishes and tasters which accompany a nice ouzo or a glass of wine. So when you read mezze moments you will have tasty snippets of life as I live it, India for four years and now Brisbane Australia, all served up with some Greek fervour and passion.

Search This Blog

Sunday 10 August 2014

Judging ... wheelbarrows with Australian landscapes

Becoming a judge crossed my mind in another life. My enthusiasm however was always muted and so it is not something that I pursued. Today, however I became a judge of a rather special kind and it was so much fun. Together with two friends, fellow judges, we set about judging a school competition.This is in conjunction with Brisbane's wonderful and vibrant agricultural show, called the "EKKA." I blogged about the show last year but this aspect of it is new to me.  The brief was to create an Australian Landscape depending on what they knew and how they perceived it in the confines of a wheelbarrow. Transforming neglected and rusty wheelbarrows into a stunning Australian landscape. 

We saw, studied, walked around, and asked copious questions of school children who were responsible for creating them and all I can say is that we thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with the children but also with the teachers. We heard some little ones tell us with confidence and pride, how they conceived their project and what they had to do to bring it to fruition. Children as young as 4 were involved. Others aged 7 were there to guide us through their projects, some remembered all the names of the plants they had sown and watched grow. Everyone put a lot of care and attention into it and had a lot of fun and learnt something in the process. I took a few pictures to share with you all as it is such a good idea and one that schools anywhere can adopt according to their terrain and their circumstances. 

This group of children created a snowy mountain on the one side with chicken wire, because they anticipate seeing snow on a school trip to Canberra, but their area is rather dry and arid so the rest was filed with succulents which is what they are used to.

The detail here was wonderful and not all is visible but there were bicycles made of bendy shiny pipe cleaners to represent active life. Plants grown from seed which were all edible and the seven year old girl who told us about them knew them all and then the lego building complete with water storage tanks at the back was to show us life in the here and now. 

This was probably one of my favourites and again the picture leaves a lot unseen. This was created by older children but who were in a correctional secure training centre. 60 % according to the teacher, are indigenous and they were keen to paint their cultural symbols, their flag, their serpents, turtles,and other patterns on the pebbles to represent who they are which they then fired.  All the plants were chosen to have a cultural significance for the children, such as the vines and even the lilies. 
This was the overall winner - They looked at the history of Australia's most notorious criminal, Ned Kelly and they created The Incredible Nedibles - edible plants made in a garden and a stream  which symbolised where he had killed the two policemen. The straw people were made of leaves of corn wrapped around a central pole. The top silk threads of the corn were woven around their heads, like hair. All the plants were NEDibles. 
This was a watering hole created with glue and water to create the stream effect and the plants were those found in the rainforest. 

This one depicted the Great Barrier Reef with all the plants being the coral and the sea plants in the ocean. The barrow was decorated with shells that the children had collected. There were more, each one special in its own way and telling a separate story. The children were rooted to their landscape and had a clear and detailed vision of it as well as problems that were likely to affect their landscapes and their lives in the years ahead.


5 comments:

  1. Τhats what I call creating with nature sis, looks wonderful, enjoy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing such kind of nice and wonderful collection......Nice post Dude keep it up.
    I have appreciate with getting lot of good and reliable and legislative information with your post......
    yard clean up Brisbane
    garden clean up brisbane

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really appreciate on your post.... and I got an usefull information about the matter... I just tried to write the same post...
    yard clean up Brisbane
    garden clean up brisbane

    ReplyDelete


  4. Great Content.I have appreciate with getting lot of good and reliable information with your post.......
    Thanks for sharing such kind of nice and wonderful collection......again, beautiful :) I love reading your posts. They make me happy . . I know something information, to know you can click here
    yard clean up Brisbane
    garden clean up brisbane

    ReplyDelete
  5. you may still trying to decide weather you should just let them grow or cut it off to ground level...
    you only going to harvest for 2 weeks and then let the plant go but you are not sure
    if you should cut these shoots off or just let it do its thing.you only have 2 days left of your harvest.

    garden clean up brisbane

    ReplyDelete

Leave a comment :)