Sera Bianca is Earl Haig’s version of Toronto’s famous Nuit Blanche. This group project consists of Grade 11 Claude Watson art majors from various disciplines to collaborate on creating performance art inspired by an assigned theme.
Since grade 9, I have been looking forward to this project, and I couldn’t wait to begin.
Concept
To start our project, we had to choose our message and figure out how to bring it to life through performance art. During an in-school field trip, we had six hours to collaborate and brainstorm ideas.
The theme of this year’s event was board games, and my group was assigned the game war-strategy game Risk. Created in 1957, Risk is a strategy game where the winner is determined by conquering the entire world, covering the board with one colour/army.
Everyone in our group interpreted the project in very different ways, which was quite interesting to me. Some were drawn to the game’s themes of strategy and choice, while others focused on power and command. We wrote down almost every idea we had, and after much discussion, we decided that we wanted our installation to interpret war’s effect on the innocent, shifting the focus away from the “fun” of the game to highlight its more serious implications.
After deciding on a message, right away we ran into a major issue. We did not take our assigned space into account. All the ideas we had come up with thus far had been reliant on having a small hallway space when in reality we were assigned a big open area. Suddenly, our plans that needed a specific entrance and exit no longer worked and we ultimately had to restart. We went back and forth with ideas of covering different objects up with some kind of material, until Lucas had an idea about covering our group members with paint, and from that, our idea came to life.
In the slide above:
- The sheet we wrote on during our discussions on our concept/ideas
- Planning table
- A slide we had to prepare for an end-of-day slideshow where we presented our ideas to the rest of the participating groups for feedback
Finalized Message
Our exhibit takes a look at war and its consequences. The installation begins with white sculptures that resemble topographic maps, representing a world untouched by corruption. As the audience is asked to add black paint to the exhibit, performers, symbolizing the innocent, become increasingly sad as everything around them falls apart. This transformation turns a pure, serene world into one marked by destruction, representing war’s devastating effect.
Process
A lot of planning and work had to be done in the two weeks between the in-school field trip and the day of the event. Lucas, Vera, and I were told to design the actual installation, with which we decided on using cardboard to make the sculptures, as it was an easy material to obtain, and we had so much practice working with it thanks to our last project.
Many of the other groups met up in person to discuss changes that had to be made and the collection of materials, however, we ended up doing a video call as it was more practical. (one that I could not show up to 😓😓) during the call, my group fleshed out our final idea and who would purchase materials with our 100-dollar budget:
Finalized Materials
- Washable black paint
- White plastic tarps
- Small condiment cups
- Drama blocks
- White outfits
- White masks
- A speaker
- Cameras
- A LOT of cardboard
- X-Acto knives
- Glue guns
- White spray paint
As time inched closer to the final day, we were unsure if we would be able to source all of our materials in time, and my group members and I grew increasingly nervous.
However, we were able to get all the materials in time for 9 am on the setup day for Sera Bianca, which would be by far the most difficult day for us. Lucas planned out a schedule for us all to adhere to, we had to create, glue, and paint at least three cardboard sculptures in pairs before 2 pm. He would go around and do hourly check-ins with all the pairs to see the progress made, however we were running significantly behind. Not everyone in our group realized how quickly we had to work, and all the majors besides the art majors had no experience working with cardboard in this way, which made them significantly slower. The creation and gluing of the sculptures took much longer than expected, and the spray paint took a very long time to dry.
Somehow, we got enough sculptures done, (though later than expected) and started installing by 3:45 pm. We set up the white tarps and blocks from the drama room and covered the walls and floors with our newly created sculptures. There was also a significant amount of cleaning and film set-up to be done, so it was a pleasant surprise when we got it fully installed by 5 pm. The actors got into costume, dressed in fully white, and then before we knew it, we were ready!
Final Product
I am so extremely grateful to have this experience. It is like nothing I have done before. Film, dance, drama, and visual art majors all approached this project so differently and it was so beautiful to see everyone’s different perspectives come together. As it is with any group, there were bumps along the way, but I am so proud of our final work. It was so satisfying to see that all our hard work and effort went into creating such a meaningful piece. I learned so much about working with other creatives, let alone other people, so this experience is something I will carry with me far into the future.
Last but not least, thank you so much to Lucas, Vera, Ren, Lidya, Ever, Sophie, Katerina, Caitlin, Maya, Rebecca, Kalia, and Aiden for being such wonderful group members & helping to create art that I am so extremely proud of!