Where The Heart Is community festival 2010

Olaia Melo and myself worked as co-facilitators on an art program for people experiencing homelessness and living with mental health issues as part of 2010 Where The Heart Is community festival. We worked with participants at Prahran Mission and Ozanam Community Centre to create a beautiful pyramid in the centre of the festival. It was a space of sanctuary to take a break from the busy fun of the festival and chill out with friends.

Here are a few of the artists involved inside the space.

The structure was made out of bamboo poles and bicycle wheel frames which participants filled in with unique designs, using a variety of media. Then on the festival day, we wove the wheels together, enlisting the helping hands of our generous family and friends.

Some close-ups of the wheels...

Some of the wheels were made into flags that lit up the festival grounds with an explosion of colour! All flags were created by participants of the previous year's art programs held at Ozanam Community Centre with hand cut stencils and screen-printed designs.

The amazing people we had the great fortune of collaborating on this with have left a lasting impression on our hearts and were a joy to work with. Their tenacity, creativity and strength of spirit were my greatest motivations.