Eco-Maze by installation artist Evelyn Roth. Bungendore Park: Fri Feb 19, 1999, 3.30-5pm, Sat Feb 20 1-5.30pm, Sun Feb 21 11am-6pm.
"Would you like me to help you read?" said the 10 year-old Eco-Guide from Bungendore's Youth Theatre to a 5 year old. "Aw, I know how to read!" came the indignant reply.
This was after nature had already had its way with the air-pressured construction - a jealous gusty north-westerly tore into the fabric of life at Lake George from the days of volcanoes and uplifts to the need to replant vegetation today.
While repairs were made I had an excellent hot cappucino at the Gib (pronounced 'jib' for Gibraltar) Street Café and delicious Armenian tea cake (walnuts and orange) under a clear sky. It looks to me that the Weereewa - Festival of Lake George is a blue sky investment for Bungendore and district.
Stan d'Argeaval deserves accolades for his organising work - and here he was with daughter Renee fixing the maze for its inaugural walk-through by an excited bunch of children guided by Sarah, Monique and Natasha whom Evelyn Roth had met only the day before. They took us through the blue-green wetlands, into a land of orange volcanoes (where we peered into the cones to read all about Lake George's history) and through to a bright blue-yellow lake where we planted velcro vegetation all around.
Evelyn - a Canadian shortly to become Australian and based nowadays in Adelaide - began by sewing a blow-up salmon for a Salmon Festival with the Haida people on Queen Charlotte Islands in 1977, having already established her work as an environmental dancer, and today has a busy career creating mazes, webs and other amazing structures for festivals in many countries.
The value of her Eco-Maze is part theatrical (this is participatory theatre, of course) and especially educational as the children experience visual stimulation, information gathering and dramatic activity around a theme which is already established in school. The maze is a support for the work of the children's teachers - and Evelyn is available to work in a residency situation for a school or community to develop fabric environments which are tailored to more specific interests. Her website is www.evelynroth.com.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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