September 26, 2019

Day 2 at Lunuganga

The floods in Bentota meant that schools were closed in the area, which meant that the ‘art room’ at Lunuganga was a full house at 11am. 

Prior to the class, umbrellas in hand, several of us ventured out to collect fallen tree branches from the vicinity of Lunuganga. Given that this was a beautiful garden, the pruned branches resembled the source.  

Gallery Tour

For this workshop, I was reunited with Shayari de Silva, my predecessor as the art teacher at the Building Hope children’s center, who convinced me to take on this art class years ago. She is now working as the curator of the Lunuganga Trust, and had organized this program for the children of the Lunuganga staff, who were especially creative people themselves. It was nice to be back doing an art class together again!

Once the students arrived, we embarked on a second  tour of the same exhibition, this time focused on Laki’s tree drawings and photographs of his ‘tree-houses’. We asked the students to select, out of Laki’s drawings - what were the most suitable locations for a tree-house. We also asked them to ‘spot the treehouse’ in photographs and discussed it. 

Planting your ‘Tree’

We started the class by planting’ the trees using 

• A peice of box cardboard, cut into approximately A4 sized rectangles 

• A palm sized ball of clay 

• A tree branch (found outside, about 1-2 feet in size) depending on the size of the student, we divided/ altered the tree branch accordingly. 

Living like Laki!

Once the mini ‘trees’ were planted, we talked about treehouses or the ‘palpatha’ as we often see around paddy fields. What if we wanted to live in a tree like Laki? We provided an assortment of materials such as:

•  Popsicle sticks 

• Kebab sticks and Ekel sticks 

• Clay (leftover from ‘planting’ 

• Cardboard 

• Scissors 

• Glue 

• Colored paper 

It was truly exciting (for both the teachers, parents and students) to watch the transformation of these ‘trees’ into adorable little dwellings, each with their own atmosphere and personality. Some had little flowers pinned into the branches. Others had a little fish pond at the base.

Many treehouses featured two little chairs, for sitting and viewing the treetops. These had an uncanny resemblance to a photograph from the exhibition - going to show how such experiences ignite great ideas and possibility in children.

Many thanks to the Bawa Trust and Laki Senanayake for the fun and Inspiration!