The Big Bottle Project

One of the important components of my Grade 8 Visual Arts course is the ‘Collaborative Art Unit’. This unit of work focuses upon the role of communities or groups of artists who decide to join forces to create large-scale works of art. We investigate the practicalities of planning and production, as well as the significance of teamwork when undertaking such projects. Each year my colleague and I look for exciting and interesting collaborative challenges for our students to undertake and so this year we decided to embark upon a project that incorporated the large cement columns that are in the front foyer of the school.

With the help of the school community, we set about collecting thousands of plastic drink bottles that would become the basis for a colourful structure that would surround each column. Each class group where given a theme that represented an element of nature (wind, fire, earth and water), which would become the basis for an individually painted design that would be repeated on a multiple series of bottles. A common colour scheme was chosen based upon shades of purple (our school colour), which would ultimately provide a highly colourful collective design.

After much bottle painting in our four Grade 8 classes, the final mounting of the piece would finally be the culmination of many hours of work. With approximately 100 students involved, this collaborative effort was always going to provide an impressive large-scale piece, but even we were surprised by the impact it would eventually have on the space.