There aren't too many primary school pupils who can boast about having their artworks displayed in an international exhibition, but the children of Forest Street Primary School can.
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The pupils have their own exhibition of photographic works as part of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale.
Children from prep to grade six spent two months working with professional photographers and educators to learn a range of new skills and photographic techniques that explore ideas around identity - and the resulting Hello Wendouree, Hello Australia will be installed at Stockland Wendouree for the two months of the BIFB.
Local photographer and teacher Rebecca Nicolandos ran workshops with the students with a focus on portraits and fun miniature landscapes.
"Children at this school had never done a unit on photography. Students of course use cameras but don't get trained in how to photograph," said BIFB education coordinator Amelia James.
"We were able to design a unit of work around the idea of identity - looking at using visual literacy as a way of exploring subjects."
Ms James said the children were keen to see their works on display at Stockland.
"It's an amazing opportunity for children to connect with the community ... and work with an institution like BIFB," Ms James said.
Using their new photographic skills, the children took pictures mainly of each other.
"The idea of identity is not necessarily literal, even though we took portraits, but it's about having a pride in work, in learning about yourself and each other and knitting all that together to build a stronger sense of self," Ms James said.
They then combined the photographs they took with other artistic techniques to create whimsical and eye-catching artworks.
The 2019 Ballarat International Foto Biennale will run for 60 days from August 23 to October 20, twice as long as previous biennales.
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In all about 100 exhibitions will be shown in about 65 venues across Ballarat as part of the BIFB, the seventh to have been held in the city.
Every one of them will be free to view except the Liu Bolin Camouflage exhibition which will be held at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
Check out the full BIFB program here
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