Congratulations to Ruth Eley – our talented kaiako based in Wānaka.
This year’s show, Rise, is themed around City scape. My piece, Bloomin Box, was the first featured piece in the Neon section.
Brought to the stage under black light, with RV Quijano singing alongside and a huge team of dancers celebrating in a full Neon graffiti styled set. Seeing my work on the WOW stage is sublime. This year, they even incorporated an audience participation piece where six audience members were invited up onto stage to dance, so I raced up and got to dance with the fabulous Sebastian Geilings.
My piece, Bloomin Box, represents my hopes for neurodiverse students struggling to find their place in the current education system. It doesn’t matter what sort of box we are pushed into, I hope that they can break the box and be their best self. Advocating for a world where unique minds are celebrated and allowed to reach their full potential.
It starts out on stage as a simple box with pretty stencilled flower patterns and grass trimmings. If you look really close, you may also even spot a few fluro ladybirds. When it moves to the front of the stage, it opens up into two 130cm wide dahlia inspired flowers. It took over 4 months to finish the piece. Considering I had started out thinking it would be easy to make, it is a good thing that I started the year part time and have a very patient and loving family who will put up with piles of fabric being scattered around the house.
If our student community is keen to try out Wearable arts, I would absolutely recommend you check out TOI, a Rockquest show run in collaboration with World of WearableArt (WOW) for both Primary and Secondary school students. This is a great, friendly stage. I (Ruth) would be more than happy to help online.
Boomin Box, Ruth Arkless, New Zealand
Photo Credit: World of WearableArt Ltd
@worldofwearableart
