At Bellarine Secondary,Sabrina Williams used her Welsh heritage as a prompt,making a mask using the flag,which she then used to half obscure her face in her poster. She was inspired by Drew’s approach and loved it. “I think it’s really good and shows different cultures are all equal. Everyone can be an Australian citizen.”
Her teacher Lyon says students were aware of what identity means with regard to their own personalities and talked about how you express your personality through things like clothes and accessories,your own music and that kind of thing. “But it seemed to be fairly new,the topic of Australian identity.”
At West Australia’s Belmont City College,students used a pared back approach,creating simple self-portraits with the word AUSSIE. Collectively,the students’ posters provide a snapshot of the diversity of the school,which is itself a microcosm of society more broadly.
Oakhill College art teacher Cecilia Weinert says seeing her students engage with Drew’s work is the most rewarding experience she’s had in her 31 years at the Castle Hill school.
A fan of Drew’s work,Weinert saw the project as both developing young people and also giving students an authentic experience of creating.
“What I like to bring into the classroom is something about the richness of the world we live in,” she says. “I’m into truth-telling and diversity – we have so much diversity in the individuals we teach,to have these little dudes in front of you doing self-portraits was wonderful.”
Approaches taken by her year eights varied:Bhargav Raghavendra created an image of himself wearing a kurta,the traditional Indian dress worn for ceremonies,which reflects his cultural background. Then,using Andy Warhol-inspired techniques,he overlaid the image with colour. He says the project was a great way to explore the diversity of Australia “and to express our cultural identity”.
Tristan Malmberg celebrated his Indonesian heritage in his piece. “In Sumatra,everyone wears sunglasses because it is such a sunny place,” he says. “By wearing these sunglasses,I acknowledge my cultural heritage and also my Australian identity as an Aussie.”
Weinert says the project gave students an insight into what artists do. “They are researchers and can go into archives,artists can get access to fields of science,they go in under the radar,” she says. “It’s always driven by their own voice and agenda and discovery.”
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There was also joy in seeing them create self-portraits,images that reflected something of themselves. “One of the boys was heading back to Vietnam to see his grandparents and I said,‘You’ve got to take your artwork’,” she says. “Just the beam on his face ... how amazing[it is] that grandparents see their grandson has been so welcomed into a country that he can celebrate his cultural heritage like that.”
At William Ruthven Secondary in Reservoir,a small group of year 12 students compared Drew’s work with that of artist and activist Keith Haring. After answering questions on the topic in their final exams,their results were higher than the state’s average.
Ideas around who we are as a people swirl around at this time of year. There are so many great things about being Australian,Drew says,and part of that is confronting our past and moving forward through it,not by avoiding it.
As for Australia Day,he is unsure where he stands on the question of changing the date.
“Maybe that tension between our pride and our shame is not meant to be resolved,” he says. “Already,the way we mark the occasion is evolving into something with more depth and complexity. I think that’s better than what we had when I was a kid,regardless of the date.”
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