This week has been very exciting for GJK Facility Services, as we engaged local Indigenous artist, Arkie to design and paint another mural for our carpark walls.

This time around we have collaborated with the students at Collingwood College, where they each designed their own piece to be incorporated into the mural. The students and Arkie have been working hard over the last few days to complete the project, which is looking fabulous! Mayor Danae Bosler - Yarra City Council even came for a visit and got painting herself!

This all started when GJK approached Collingwood College’s Principal Sam Luck, and art teacher Angela Dionysopoulos, with the idea of Arkie sharing her knowledge and stories of Indigenous art with the students.

The idea around this was to educate the students from grades 5 & 6, about Indigenous culture which would then form part of their art curriculum. Arkie shared her story and meaning behind her artwork with the students, inspiring them with ideas of what their symbol could be. The students were then asked to create their own symbol, which they would then paint onto the large community mural.

Arkie explained to the students; “In my art, I use contemporary and abstract symbols to depict things in the environment around us and also things about myself. A lot of my work uses a circular symbol which can mean many things across different Indigenous Australian people. For my family, it means campsites and meeting places”.

During the following weeks, the students worked on their designs with the excitement of knowing they would soon be part of a larger artwork on display for everyone to see.

Arkie’s vision behind this mural?

“The art piece I’ve created with the students, represents different parts of the community coming together to support each other and how a community working together can achieve great things.”

GJK is proud to be involved in such a great project and we look forward to the unveiling of the finished artwork.