We spent the first part of the elective learning what makes collaboration effective and developing our ideas for the project. We wanted to make an artwork that was accessible to everyone and would express the cultures and colours of our school, especially the new whare system.

After a lot of research and discussion, we decided to make some games and so we developed our ideas to a final design that we all agreed on and decided on roles for everyone in the group.

Then Covid19 and lockdown happened. That meant a seven week break as we were at the production stage and needed to be able to share materials and equipment. It also meant that we had to be really resourceful and redesign core aspects when we returned to school.

We decided to split into two groups and work on related, but different projects based on the games of Twister and Checkers. These games felt like they would be more manageable than what we had originally planned.

Everyone was working on slightly different aspects of each project depending on what their individual strengths were and some of us further challenged ourselves by taking on leadership roles.

We scaled down our original plan and decided to make transportable games as the original games were going to be painted onto concrete. Also, we needed to be able to work indoors away from weather interruptions. We used paint and fabric in the whare colours and cultural symbolism on some of the pieces.

We had the idea that the games could be used for whare challenges. Since the games are still artworks and will need some supervision and care we decided to give them to the Kaiaritaki to manage.

We are really proud of what we managed to achieve within the limited time left and have all learned something about working collaboratively. We hope that you take the opportunity to play what we have created and connect with others; maybe some people that are new to you.

Bicycle powered movie night!