Diss

In a single day, Year 9 pupils worked to transform a disused and unloved mobile classroom, drawing inspiration from the idea of pangals.  Pangals are the highly decorated panels originally used for the walls and ceilings of Papua New Guinean spirit houses, known as Haus Tambaran. The pupils used this idea to express their own culture and sense of personal and group identity, through improvising with colours, patterns and compositional design. The spectacular results were used to clad the outside of the mobile, while the inside space was transformed into a temporary museum.

The theme that emerged most strongly was personal identity in connection with imagery and physical spaces. The pupils were stimulated by the patterns and colours discovered on pangals, but were given a free rein in designing their own colours and patterns and deciding on symbolism. This encouraged personal expression and made each group's pangal highighly individual. It was also interesting to see how pupils came to terms with the idea of their own museum, and how ownership of space was very important to them.