Alexandria Park Community School with Biennale of Sydney

I dream about the past.
It was a full classroom
4 brothers standing next to each other. Stronger than a lion and as tall as 7 feet, so gigantic
the plants are so long, it may be covered with glass and contains in sand.
It is lost like the rest of us in this world.
     - Collective poem, Alexandria Park Community Junior School (inspired by artist Jamie North’s work Succession, 2016)

Missed the event?
Read the poems here.

In celebration of Harmony Day, The Red Room Company, in partnership with the 20th Biennale of Sydney and Carriageworks, held a workshop and poetry reading with primary school students from Alexandria Park Community Junior School. Alexandria Park is one of the most diverse schools in the country, with students coming from over 80 different countries, speaking over 60 languages.

Renowned poet Zohab Zee Khan led students from Years 5 and 6 through the Biennale of Sydney’s Embassy of Disappearance, prompting them to create poetic responses that map the appearing and reappearing worlds around them.

The Biennale of Sydney is a contemporary visual arts festival with a program of artist talks, performances, forums, family days, guided tours, and other special events. Students’ work was celebrated alongside Biennale artists’ responses to the evocative theme of Disappearance at a special reading, held at Carriageworks on Saturday, 2 April 2016.

These poetic outcomes will be published as part of The Red Room Company’s digital project, The Disappearing – a digital anthology of poetry linked to disappearing places.

Media release