Year seven students at Alleyn’s School, Dulwich, have won an artistic award for their environmentally-conscious sculptures.
Forty-five pupils won the ‘Group Category’ in the 2022 BioArtAttack competition for their piece entitled ‘Clay Corals’ which showed how corals look when they ‘bleach’.
Bleaching is when corals lose their colour after being exposed to pollutants and changing temperatures.
By displaying the white clay coral sculptures alongside projected images of living corals, the piece showed a coral reef’s sad journey from life to death.
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Their art teacher, Joanne Platten, said: “After watching ‘Chasing Coral’ on Netflix I wanted to do a piece of art to raise awareness of this issue. Art is a great tool for activism and raising awareness on all sorts of issues and I’m so pleased this project has had some recognition.
“The pupils really enjoyed the clay work and many were unaware of the severity of this problem and why we need our coral reefs’. Climate change is something I am working hard at integrating into my schemes and cross curricular learning is a personal passion of mine.”
Over 350 pieces, including collages and knitted objects, were entered into the competition organised by the Royal Society of Biology.
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Entrants were told to create a piece inspired by the natural world – whether that be tiny cell structures or the vast ecosystems.
Reflecting on their success, Trisha Aiyar, aged eleven, said: “I really enjoyed the coral project because it allowed me to delve into the world of sculpturing, a fairly new skill for me, allowing me to get to grips with the corals’ intricacy and beauty.
“Also, this piece of corals was very heartfelt because we made sure the corals were white, instead of multi-coloured to represent the pollutants and heat in the sea that is destroying and bleaching our beautiful corals.”