Conservation, connection and collaboration were at the forefront of a special school holiday workshop run at Bullsbrook College in October. The purpose of the workshop was to create artwork to be used at the City of Swan’s Bullsbrook Recycling Centre, in conjunction with a revegetation project with Bullsbrook Landcare.
The area to be revegetated lies adjacent to the recycling centre and among the degraded farming land and abundant weeds is the potential for a thriving wetland and educational space.
Bullsbrook Landcare’s Anne Janes is pleased to be able to bring multiple organisations together to work on the project.
“Revegetation is what our group and Chittering Landcare are really experienced at doing and this is the perfect spot to showcase how to revegetate an area. You can never bring the land back to what it was, but you can give it some environmental value. The weeds are daunting, but it has great potential and I would love to see schools use it in the future,” said Anne.
Through their Friends of Bullsbrook Recycling Centre subsidiary group, Landcare have started the mammoth task of weeding and planting the site. Anne says, “City of Swan fenced the area to be planted to prevent many landlocked kangaroos from destroying them. Thanks to a Federal grant and volunteers from Tronox, Landcare and the wider community we got 35,000 plants in the ground this season. We planted as much as we could inside the fence and have so far seen a 95% survival rate. Thanks to Brad Thompson at City of Swan for his assistance.”
Bullseye Youth Centre officer Rebecca Naisbitt had mentioned to Anne that some young people had been feeling quite disconnected post-COVID. “I thought ‘Art is a great way to bring people together’ and set about connecting with Bullsbrook College,” said Anne.
Despite the hard sell of getting students to come to school during the holidays, an enthusiastic group jumped on board. After a site visit to the Recycling Centre and a brainstorming session the students spent three days under the encouraging eye of art specialist Liz Manera, bringing their ideas to life. Inspired by the Noongar six seasons and wildlife endemic to the area they created a collage comprised of ink backgrounds — representing the colours of the seasons — with meticulously hand-cut white silhouettes of the animals placed on top.
The design will be digitised and used as a border on information signs on gazebos and shelters in the revegetated area. The long-term vision is to incorporate a public walking trail through the revegetated area.
Liz was full of praise for her aspiring artists.
“It was a great pleasure to work with these nine keen young people — and what a lovely surprise to discover more artistic talent in Bullsbrook! The group embraced the concept of the six seasons and the diversity and interconnections of life in the area year-round,” she said.
“They created beautiful interpretations of the changing colours of the landscape and the distinctive features of each chosen creature. Thanks to Ayesha, Dylan, Jordan, Krystal, Olivia, Paige, Rhianna, Sienna and Rohan for their contribution.”
The literal icing on the cake for this community project was to have food provided for the workshop by the Bullsbrook and Districts CWA team!
