Diorama

Since we moved to New Zealand three and a half years ago I have been involved in the creation of more dioramas than in all the other thirty-five and a half years of my life! Why, oh why do teachers here insist on torturing the parents of their students with their fiendishly designed demands for dioramas? This project required Charlie to depict five of the challenges that early settlers to New Zealand faced, with, economic, cultural, environmental and social challenges all represented. Charlie chose to create a cemetery in which we have Donald McDonald (a playmobil fireman morphed with a pirate to depict a settler) contemplating the graves of his family. These include Doreen, his wife who died in childbirth and his son, Darwin, who died due to poor medical care (social issues), his brother, Jim, who died in a land battle with local Maori (cultural misunderstandings over property) and brother in law, Will, who died because he was forced to learn a new trade to earn his living and found himself to be not very skilled at whaling (economic challenge). Poor Donald has laid his axe on some nearby rocks for a moment (represents the thick bush needed to be cleared for farming - environmental challenge) to wallow in his isolation and homesickness (social). A very mournful but highly effective piece of work, Charlie!