Aboriginal Dot Painting with Preschoolers
In honour of Reconciliation Week 2024, we share the meaning behind our foyer table top artwork, designed by Aunty Michelle of Kilipiynpiyn Workshops, and completed in collaboration with our preschoolers.
In Australia, “reconciliation is about is about strengthening relationships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous peoples, for the benefit of all Australians” (Reconcillation.org.au). We strive to embed Indigenous perspectives across the centre so that our preschoolers develop a foundational understanding of and respect for Aboriginal culture. One impactful way to strengthen relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples is through educational visits from local Elders, who teach the children about different aspects of Aboriginal knowledge and traditions.
We have been grateful to have Aunty Michelle from Kilipiynpiyn Workshops in our community. She has been visiting Sustainable Play Preschool since 2023. In November 2023, she initiated the painting of our wooden small group foyer table. It has since been transformed into a work of creative collaborative art in the Aboriginal style of dot painting.
The Aboriginal people of Australia have a rich oral tradition. One medium to support storytelling is artwork – the style of dot painting uses visual cues to tell a story. Aunty Michelle worked with children to paint the table in this dot painting style, using symbols significant to our preschoolers’ daily life, including the the flora and fauna that reside in and frequent our learning environments at preschool and the nearby bush we visit on bush kindy excursions.
Aunty Michelle shares that the artwork depicted here contains an element of purposeful ambiguity. The meaning can work on multiple levels, not only showing a day of a preschooler learning, but also extending to all their years in early childhood and beyond – all the time they spend learning, individually or among peers, in the classroom space or in the bush, in an intentional teaching moment or during play. An area of the table may appear more to you like children moving over rocks and moss or more like children moving around the garden – the piece is open to individual interpretation and there is room for varied meaning here.
Read on to learn about how the different images and symbols represented on this table tell a story about Sustainable Play preschoolers.
Aunty Michelle has shared a Dreamstime story, ‘The Legend of the Flowers’ (Source: Michael J Connolly | Munda-gutta Kulliwari | Dreamtime Kullilla-Art), with the children that is supported by the elements painted on the table. The narrative of the Wirinuns’ journey flows throughout the table as they reach the summit of Mount Yengo, are then lifted into the Sky Camp (which can be represented by the Sustainable Play pink, green and orange mandala in the centre of the table), and then return to the People. Read the ‘The Legend of the Flowers’ story in the following image.
Journey Lines
First things first. Aunty Michelle began by dotting the ‘journey lines’. For us, this journey is the learning journey that children make everyday at preschool. This journey is ongoing, continuously developing and changing, cycling as children go through different developmental phases, engage in new interests and passions and build upon their learning. The journey lines depicted on the table have no end, in line with our philosophy to encourage a child’s love of learning that lives in them long after they leave Sustainable Play.
Learning Circles
Along the journey are the ‘learning circles’ that show the different types of learning occurring at preschool throughout the day. Depending on both the size of the circles and the orientation of the ‘c’ shaped symbols inside the circle, the children might be engaged in a small group experience, they may be independently working on different activities, or they may be all gathered for a shared teaching moment or a shared meal time. The ‘c’ shape represents a person sitting, with their legs out.
Learning in the Bush Environment
Scattered throughout the table are areas of bush land where children are partaking in a bush kindy excursion. Children are represented with feet, the trees with ‘T’ shapes, and places of significance where a child has ‘stopped to look’ with a red + blue dot.
Learning in the Preschool Environments
Shown in multiple areas are environments for play-based learning, such as the rock and moss garden in the back playground where children play, traverse and build motor skills. It can also be interpreted as any of our garden spaces which have above-ground growing beds and in-ground native plants.
The area portraying ‘climbing opportunities’ is a birds-eye view of our weaving poles and/or any climbing areas for children, such as the mulberry tree and any of the climbing equipment in the back garden.
The brown background with rainbow and black dots represents children playing on the soft floor in the back garden around the cubby house.
Flora and Fauna
Vibrantly featured across the table, Aunty Michelle included the plants and creatures that both live in or frequent our preschool gardens, in addition to the nearby bush.
Creatures
On the table, sits a kookaburra, magpie, rainbow lorikeet, lizard, frog and butterfly.
Native Plants
Filling in every nook and cranny are native Australian plants. Portrayed on the table are gum blossoms, wattle blossoms, native pea flowers, native violets, tea tree blossoms, Christmas bell, bottlebrush flowers, egg and bacon flowers, flag iris and brachyscome.
The humble foyer table has become a point of conversation for our families and preschoolers, a centrepiece and a gateway to interest in Aboriginal culture.
Thank you Aunty Michelle!
