This is a name for the Marlborough Girls College mural, designed and painted by a very dedicated group of students during the Easter holidays in 2023.

It received 3rd place in the Resene Paints National Mural Competition, Best Senior School Mural category.

"However, it is not so easy to create a mural that expresses ever evolving wonderful ideas of our amazingly creative youth", says the MGC’s Arts Coordinator - Ewa Zielinska. "It was a process driven by enthusiasm for visual arts and hard work. It took the students almost a whole year to conceptualize the imaginative thinking and constant curiosity about the cultural, social and political world."

We invited a local artist Kylie Fleur for initial talks and artistic inspirations. Students based their discussions and concepts on the MGC’s values: Kotahitanga, Whanaungatanga and Manaakitanga. Then, we met almost every week to research, talk and draw. By expressing their concerns and worries, asking questions and being brave, students finally found a picture of what it is that represents the school values and all students at MGC. It was very important to them to have a visual representation of that environment.

During the creative process and painting we learnt to ask vital questions, share new ideas freely, compromise, solve problems quickly and we had to be very good at predicting weather.

The mural was curated by UK born NZ artist Rowan Belcher who is also a secondary visual arts teacher. We also had a visiting Ukrainian artist Anastasiia Shumkova who helped us with painting. 

The project involved the following students: Emily Pitcon, Maia Anderson, Paxton Boyd, Emma Minehan, Lexie Newman, Anika McPhee, Ayla McPhee, Grace Boyd, Abbie Cornelius, Chelsea Craig, Jessica Bell. 

The whole project was organised and run by Ewa Zielinska, MGC’s Arts Coordinator. 

Thank you Resene for their sponsorship of this event.