August – November 2016
This project was initiated and supported by Country Arts SA and involved a number of artists developing community based outcomes in and around Bordertown. Whilst simultaneously engaging community groups in processes and outcomes, the context of the overall project also invited broader conversations of what borders might mean in general. Discussions of boundaries and obstacles – physical, social and political were fostered during the each of the artist’s processes. An expansive and reflective publication will be presented in late November 2016 as a summary document of all of the various project components.
My primary community engagement was to spend a couple of weeks working together with students from Bordertown High School to teach them some basic stencil and aerosol skills whilst also supporting them through the process of developing a couple of large-scale, collaborative murals within the school grounds. Beyond this, I created a large mural for the main street of the town. It depicts a pair of Border Collies crawling under and leaping over road blocks. The imagery is intended to imply an empowering sense of regional communities and their ability to overcome obstacles of all kinds.
James Dodd, Country Arts SA, This is A Border (Town), Mural Timelapse from James Dodd on Vimeo.