By Derek Schlennstedt
The HERE ME youth arts project culminated on Saturday 13 April with a Flashmob taking over Belgrave.
Local artist and secondary teacher Dani-Ela Kayler ran the HERE ME workshops, which invited young people aged 13-18 years old to share and interact with their community.
The Here Me workshops included group discussions exploring ideas, drama-based activities, learning contact improvisation skills and checking out the public and hidden spaces of Belgrave.
Checking out and inhabiting public spaces is exactly what they did, when on Saturday 13 April, Dani and her class of 10 took to the Belgrave streets.
“It was great, unbelievable. The weather came to town and it couldn’t have been any better,” said Dani.
“We had a great audience that met us near the train station and then from it gained a bit of momentum and we moved up to the side of the road near the pedestrian crossing.
“It was just really joyful seeing people driving through Belgrave and at one point the lights turned green at the pedestrian crossing no one moved, no one honked … It was amazing.”
Dani told the mail that the HERE ME art project was created to offer local youth an opportunity to dispel the misconceptions and stereotypes about teenagers these days.
“We inhabited different spaces and then had a billboard that accompanied them, similar to a label,” she said.
“The kids really enjoyed having a chance to have a voice and share in their own words what infuriates them and feel people don’t listen and so nice to see what their response was on these billboards.”
