The class worked with Tony (and later on in the project Mick) to create their own 'Ijele' that reflected aspects of their community that they were proud of. The piece was created in three main sections.

The lower section depicted local characters and professions that were valued. The class began by listing those that they wished included ranging from the Lollipop man, their teacher and the local doctor to their own parents, the school caretaker and fire-fighters. Each child drew up one of the figures, cut it out and screen printed it onto a fabric panel. When they were dry they hand painted them and blotted off any excess ink.

The centre section featured animals from proverbs and followed on from the work that the children had undertaken with Sola and Ayo around proverbs. Each child in the class selected an animal from a proverb drew it and coloured it in. Eight different animals were then chosen and the artists re-drew their picture simplifying it for print and then cutting it out as a paper shape. They then hand painted an abstract coloured background onto individual fabric pieces, placed their paper shapes on top and screen printed them so the shapes stood out as bright, colourful images.

Featured on the image page are a monkey, an owl, a bat, a peacock and a fox. The other three chosen animals were a tortoise, a lion and a mouse.

Can you work out what the proverbs for these 8 animals are?

Click here to go to the literacy page to check your answers.

The upper section of the piece represented people from the children's own families that they were proud of, people living or dead that were special to the family.

Some chose parents, brothers or sisters while others remembered ancestors whom family members often talked about - uncles and aunties who fought in the war or grandfathers that came from other countries to settle in England. The children drew an exciting range of characters, then showed them to the class and explained why they had been selected. These figures were cut out and printed as 2 colour overprints.

The roof of the mask was made from fabric that the children had painted with patterns and marks that they had sketched from various objects at the African Worlds exhibition.

Four figures representing children from different cultural backgrounds - two boys/two girls - were drawn, printed, cut out and stuffed with wadding to go on the top of the piece. These figures were chosen by the children in the class to reflect the pride that they shared in their differences and were linked together to show the friendship that they all share.

The piece was assembled in the classroom and then finished by Shelagh. Finally it was brought back to the class to be fitted for the performance. A harness was strapped onto the pupil chosen to wear the ijele and a lightweight structure, made from carbon-fibre rods, supported the mask leaving hands free to shake and move it in the rhythm of the large elephant that the pupil was representing in the performance.

Back to top of page
Back to page with images
Back to CCPS opening page
Back to schools/projects section