As part of the ‘Remediating Stevenson: Decolonising Robert Louis Stevenson’s Pacific Fiction’ Project, artists from Hawaii and Samoa joined colleagues in Scotland to celebrate both the work of Stevenson and to share new works of art inspired by his pacific fiction. Part of the programme included visiting schools in East Lothian, Midlothian and Edinburgh where pupils enjoyed a range of creative arts and writing based workshops from the project’s artists.
In Law Primary School, the P6 and P7 pupils took part in an exciting series of workshops which saw them creating a mural, designing comic strips and writing poetry.
“Pupils took part in an exciting series of workshops which saw them creating a mural, designing comic strips and writing poetry.”
Solomon Enos, Hawaiian illustrator and multimedia artist, worked with pupils to explore his Hawaiian heritage and culture and introduced his Pasifika Futures artwork. They worked collectively to create a mural that linked to futuristic characters, technologies and games, which was then displayed in the classroom for pupils to celebrate.
Simon Greenman, a British artist and academic, engaged Primary 7’s with designing their own comic strips that related to European visual stories in the time of Stevenson. Blackout poetry, using an extract from Robert Louis Stevenson’s work, was created by Primary 6 and Primary 7’s. Led by Selina Tusitala Marsh, a poet, illustrator, and academic, pupils were invited to perform an ‘Identity Chant’ which would aid the selection of words from their poems which they were then able to showcase to their peers.
P6’s enjoyed Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard’s workshop, which allowed pupils to compose their own poem from selected prompts and relate it to their senses, to complete a final piece which could be celebrated in the classroom. Caroline is a is a retired professor of English from the University of Hawai`i at Manoa, and presently teaches and mentors students in Samoa and the US.
“Pupils worked collectively to create a mural that linked to futuristic characters, technologies and games.”
About the Project
These workshops were part of an interdisciplinary project which explores the legacies of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Pacific writing, investigating the relevance of his work to contemporary readers in Sāmoa, Scotland and Hawai‘i, led by the University of Edinburgh. The project supports decolonising the curricular and new art and poetry inspired by the three short stories published in Stevenson’s 1893 collection Island Nights’ Entertainments will be published in 2024. Graphic novels and curriculum resources will be available to Scottish schools later in 2024.
More information about the project can be found here.
