Using art to tell the story of a community

Inspired by cultural totem poles that tell stories of people, history and country, Community Totems are co-created art projects designed to build community and belonging through physical, interactive storytelling.

People were asked to respond to the idea of belonging by creating a block that told a story about their experience in the community space. The blocks were then stacked to create totems. Each totem could be pulled apart and recreated in any order, and new blocks could be created at any time to continue to build the story of the place and the community as it grew.

As part of the project, workshops were run with kids and adults in different communities to create the blocks. Safety was an important component to this piece, especially as many of the children involved were very young, and we were using power tools as well as sharp objects such as broken tiles for mosaics, glass and glues. Blocks were pre-drilled with holes to enable them to easily fit onto the totem central structure – a concrete rebar – which was firmly embedded into the ground to ensure the weight of the blocks would not topple and fall on anyone as the totems were built.

Community Totems created at;

• Kinma School’s 40th Anniversary celebrations, Terrey Hills, May 2012
• Wild Yam Festival, Mangrove Mountain, Dec 2013

Materials

• Found / recycled timber offcuts
• Various craft materials – mosaics, beads etc
• Tile adhesive
• Powertools
• Found / recycled rebar