We started out in the library, spending hours researching and studying cultures. We originally chose 12 cultures/animals, making an image board fore each that depicted the culture's people, their clothes, homes, art and artifacts. See more of them at Project Tails
After eventually focusing on four cultures, we made image boards of the animals that were to represent them. Why animals? Animals are without preconceived political associations as well as provide a medium children would want to interact and play with.
After finding few resources online, we discovered a great book on animal anatomy.
Distilling the visual qualities of a culture was a huge challenge in understanding form languages. These initial sketches explore how we might apply swelling Indian architectural features to the form of an elephant.
The final four:
Indian (Chola) / Asiatic Elephant / rosewood
Japanese (Heian) / Crane / cypress
Inuit (1850-1960) / Polar Bear / birch
Zulu (1800-1900) / Giraffe / lyptus
The project was shown at CMU's Meeting of the Minds annual research symposium, where it won an award.
At home in the grass. Children's interactions with these animals, along with support materials, will be the building blocks to a cultural knowledge which can be enriched through zoos, museums, books and travel.
This was our first experience in using hand wood carving tools, and as such there was a big learning curve (along with cuts, stiches and scars). We quickly worked our way from clay to foam to basswood to the final pieces.
Each animal has an associated color (which is also on the bottom of their feet) and pattern derived from their culture.
Custom drawstring bags hold each animal.
