Planet Earth Made of Banana Leaves
Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: Mar 24 2008 | By: Julie
Valerie, Eric, Fahad and I are preparing to give a geography/evolution lesson to our
Art of Conservation students. We won’t be teaching from a text book, however. We will teach in a more creative way using a special prop, one that looks like Planet Earth. But who can make this for us in Rwanda? Alphonsine, of course! Alphonsine lives in Kinigi, near Parc National des Volcans where she works out of her home, making all kinds of things from dried banana leaves. I doubt any one has ever asked her to create a big round ball. Eric used an inflated plastic tennis ball to show Alphonsine an example of what we want, explaining that we’d like her to make something similar but of dried banana leaves and BIG, but not too big that it can’t fit into the back of my truck.
Eric shows Alphonsine an inflated plastic tennis ball, a model of the future Planet Earth to be made of dried banana leaves.
Alphonsine made over 200 frames for our latest art exhibitions held in December 2007.
An artist is standing in front of the art which is displayed using frames made by Alphonsine.
And here is Samantha standing in front of some art a few months ago!
A close-up view of the labor-intensive work.
I met Alphonsine over a year ago. Since then, I’ve hired her to make various things for me, all out of banana leaves of course. She makes mats and frames, boxes, and baskets. If I surprise her with a large order, she’ll often hirer other banana weavers to help her. I recently asked her to make me a set of mats to use to hang some of our artwork. When I explained that I needed ten 3.5 foot x 3.5 foot square panels - and soon - she responded as usual with smiles and laughs. At that point, Alphonsine grabbed my hand and led me to her workspace saying something in Kinyarwanda that I couldn’t understand. Valerie translated. Alphonsine was just letting me know that this type of work takes time. She also had to find especially long banana leaves for these mats. Who knows what she’ll need for the Earth.
Making the big square panels requires especially long and hard to find banana leaves.
Until next time,
Julie
Tags: Art of Conservation (AoC), Team AoC (Team Art of Conservation)
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3 Responses to “Planet Earth Made of Banana Leaves”
Theresa Siskind St Petersburg FL, on 24 Mar 2008
Julie, I’m really curious what the finished Planet Earth will look like, very imaginative project. Alphonsine does beautiful work, I wish I had her patience!
julie (Art for Gorillas), on 25 Mar 2008
Hi Theresa,
We passed by Alphonsine’s house a few days ago. She wanted us to check her progress on Planet Earth and it is great! She has one more layer of leaves to go and then it will be finished, although we aren’t so sure it will fit into the back of the truck, but there is no problem with strapping it onto the roof! It will be quite a sight. Late April or May is when we will bring it to classes and have the lessons on geography and ‘where gorillas come from’ and you will definitely hear about it here!
Best wishes,
Julie
Theresa Siskind St Petersburg FL, on 25 Mar 2008
Julie, thanks for the sneak preview. Wish I was in some of these classes myself.
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