Inspiration Africa! Sandhurst Junior School

INSPIRATION AFRICA!
Project 2
Sandhurst Junior School

Welcome to Sandhurst Junior School's project. Please roll your mouse over the faces, read what Year 5 and their teacher have written below and then follow the links to find out more.






"Year 5 have been lucky enough to have been involved in a 5 day project which involved art, drama, literacy and ICT. It was mainly run by 4 adults who came to our school - an artist called Tony, a story teller called Sola, an ICT organiser called Jacqui and a lady from the Education Department of the Horniman Museum called Viv. We also met a finisher called Sheila who helped us with our art focus and an Arts Advisor called Kevin who recorded some of our poems on a video camera.

Our focussed object was a Mende mask which originates from the Mende people in Sierre Leone in West Africa. We learnt that many of the images we thought were ugly are regarded as beautiful to the Mende society. The mask represents womanly qualities, spirituality and physical beauty. The small face and eyes, the large forehead, the elaborate hair style and the rolls of fat around the neck are typical Mende features of beauty. They indicate wealth, as only the well-fed can achieve this look.

We found out that the mask is work by women only in a masquerade which symbolises the change from childhood to womanhood. A dancer wears the mask with raffia covered cloth and performs a ceremonial dance.



From studying this mask we devised the theme for our project - BEAUTY." Adapted from Year 5 Assembly script.