Outback Lightshow is a studio I attended in Year 2. We went to Mildura for few days and worked with the local community.
Mildura is such a small town, but seems like everyone is knowing each other but still respect each other. And the Mildura community is pretty much involving everything including the communal facilities, bus station, schools, art, agricultures and beautiful views.
A quote from Henry David Thoreau “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” This had exactly described the people in Mildura that what they need is very little, so they are happier. They don’t have towering buildings, they only see each other while they walking on the street; we live in the cities, we hardly ever talk to the community we lived in - at least I don't know who is living across my door.
To live in the small town like Mildura, citizens had been stabilising the environment and themselves since many years ago when there were only aboriginal people living here. They learn from nature, perform from the dangers, and build things based on their knowledge. It was an honour to have a little conversation with the aboriginal teacher. I am personally so interested in the aboriginal culture, ideas, and spirits.
As the design students, we also worked with the local students (as part of the local community) to transform our knowledge into the practice. What we did was to create projections about food and culture of the community at two local sites, one across the car park and one besides the river. It was great to see our projects was projected on the walls and local community participated and interacted with the effects that the projection had been created.
