By Callum Ludwig
Some students and parents from Kilsyth Primary School have been hard at work on a new mural that recognises and celebrates the land of the Wurundjeri people their school sits on.
The mural was officially launched to students, staff, parents and visitors on Friday 22 November by artist Merilyn Duff, a proud Trawoolway woman who lives in the Yarra Ranges and helped the students and helpful parents design and create the mural
Ms Duff said working with the students had been beautiful because it’s a lovely community at the school.
“I was bullied really badly at school, particularly in primary school, and still at my ripe old age, I was wondering about what school was like these days,” she said.
“I feel like a new woman just from meeting everybody here and how accepting and loving and kind everybody is, I know that everybody has their moments though, so they’re not perfect, but we’ve had a really great journey together making up the story and working out the designs, it’s just been an absolute joy and I’m hoping they’ll find more walls for me to paint on.”
The mural is proudly on display facing out into the schoolyard, spanning about 18 metres along the two-metre high wall.
The students had plenty to say about their experience too;
“I learnt that the hands are reaching up to the stars, and I didn’t know they were stars because they were circles with dots around them, and I liked that we all came together as a group and helped make it,” Wade said.
“It’s showing that we show respect to every culture,” Natalia said.
“It shows that we worked hard on something that we will get to see every day,” Taylor said.
The mural features a range of different significant parts of life on Wurundjeri country including:
Two scar trees feature along the mural, depicting the resilience and strength of gum trees which continued to live after First Nations people ‘scarred’ them to coolamons {carrying dishes for food or water) or canoes.
Bunjil eagle, believed to be the creator, is depicted above a rising sun.
The Kith and Kin symbols represent the friends and family you surrounded yourself with and the beginning of life and your story
The Birrarung, or Yarra River, runs along the bottom of the mural.
There are multiple yarning circles, representing community and a place to come together
The Lomandra plant features, as the most prominent and commonly used weaving plant found in the region, including at the school.
The hands are reaching up the stars in the sky, symbolic of reaching for excellence while there are also symbols of journeying together, such as the footprints of people, kangaroos, emus and possums.
Kilsyth Primary School’s ‘value birds’ also found a place, with the green bird representing respect, red representing resilience and blue presenting excellence.
Middle School Leader at Kilsyth Primary School Alison Harris said they are hugely proud of what they have achieved and the hard work that has been put into it.
“It did take quite a while, it was quite a process and lots of organising to do but I can see already the impact that it’s having on the school,” she said.
“The kids are really proud of it, hey’re curious and asking lots of questions and they all go up and if there’s a particular part of the mural that they really like, they’ll touch it, run their fingers over it or put their hands on it just to get that connection as well, which has been fantastic.”
This project was funded in-part by the Department of Education’s School Focused Youth Service program in partnership with Yarra Ranges Council
