Lake Light Sculpture 2023 - Street Edition Memorable School Inspirations

Government and Independent schools, along with Early Childhood Centres across the Snowy Monaro Region are working toward a celebration of the wonderful outdoor alpine and Monaro environment through a reactivation of the inspiration that comes through the return of Lake Light Sculpture - Street Edition, over the Easter period this year.

“This year, the Easter break falls at the end of school term one, and the start of the school holiday period. This will provide students and staff with almost 10 weeks to explore artistic concepts and actively engage students in one of the primary forms of communication in contemporary society, providing those students with a unique means of personal growth and development,” said LLS Committee member and retired art teacher, Steve Cooper.

In the 2021 LLS exhibition, five local schools - Berridale Public, Dalgety Public, Jindabyne Central, Snowy Mountains Grammar, and St Patrick’s Parish Cooma, together with Snowy Mountains Care & Early Learning Centre and the Thredbo Early Childhood Centre created 18 separate works of art.

“The standard of school entries in 2021 was truly memorable,” commented local arts educator and LLS Committee member Jan Owens.

“Such was the standard that it was too close to call a single winner of the $550 Schools Award, with it being shared between JCS’s Years 8 and 9 entry -

Oblivious to Oblivion, and the school’s Year 4 entry - Faces of the Future,” Jan added.

Jan has been involved with the LLS management committee for more than 15 years, and throughout that time, Jan has witnessed an increased love and level of excitement in arts education made possible through the involvement of local school communities, which often brings students, parents and staff together at exhibition time.

“The art critic David Byrne said that modern art as a concept only exists when it is exhibited, and the act of hanging and displaying the work completes it when viewed by the audience, the spectator,” explained Jan.

“Lake Light Sculpture enables our local students to both learn and enjoy the process of art making, then provides them with an exciting and relatively immediate vehicle to display their work and share in the immense satisfaction with family, friends, and over 25,000 other visitors - that can be very exhilarating and rewarding for our young artists,” said Jan.

Local school communities have welcomed the additional inspiration that the new ‘Street Edition’ route has facilitated this year, with the LLS pathway passing by the front corner of Jindabyne Central School on the corner of Kalkite and Clyde Streets and finishing at the Barry Way corner location of Snowy Mountains Grammar School.

“With the introduction of the Thursday 6 April Community Day, together with the addition of a Street theme alongside the Lake and Alpine/Monaro theme, we look forward to some new creative developments from our schools’ entries in 2022,” said LLS ChairpersonCherie McNair.

The history of schools’ involvement in Lake Light Sculpture began as early as 2007, when three schools participated. Over the past 17 years, as many as thirteen schools have exhibited in any one year.

During that time, a number of art educators have also conducted ‘Outdoor Studios’ during the LLS exhibition period, whilst in other years schools have engaged in long-term and collective projects to create much admired additions to the lake pathway, such as the ‘Park your Arts’ project.

Art teachers’ Sallianne Greentree and Katie Lew with students from JCS and SMGS created a long-lasting ‘seat’ legacy through the development of an organic double-sided ceramic seat, and it remains in good repair despite the rising lake levels over the past couple of years.

“The benefit of such an activity to the community in processing skills, creating and expressing their awareness of their sense of place in different aspects is considerable” said arts educator Sallianne Greentree.

“When community and schools are involved in working together to produce something tangible and lasting, camaraderie and caring for the built environment are the satisfying outcomes. The value of sitting for some time and enjoying places and so allowing reflective time is unquestionable,” she added.

Sculptors from around Australia have been invited to enter the Lake Light Sculpture 2023 Street Edition to showcase their outdoor contemporary sculptures in the alpine setting of Jindabyne. Normally displayed on the Lake Jindabyne foreshore, this year due to high