National Museums Liverpool Blog - Superfiveadaybanana

Here Michelle O'Callaghan, our youth arts officer, talks to two young people about fruit!

Busy on the superlambanana

NACRO Kensington Junior Youth Inclusion Project was the lucky group selected with their winning ‘Superfiveaday’ fruit and vegetable themed ‘Lambanana. Working with professional artist Vince, the group will be working hard over the next three weeks to ripen their ‘Lambanana and bring him to life! During the session I took two of the young participants, Jessica and Ashleigh aside for a quick interview about their initial experiences of the project so far and this is what they had to say…

“Today was our first session with our ‘Lambanana and five of our group came to get started. ‘Lambanana started off purple – which was weird! We expected it to be white or cream.

The boys worked on painting the orange, the broccoli and the banana and we (the girls) worked on painting the strawberry – the 'Lambanana’s head. It felt boss painting the first bit on the ‘Lambanana, actually it was just boss painting it full stop! The best bit about today has been the actual painting, getting started and having fun!

We can’t wait to come down to the Walker Art Gallery when it’s finished to see what it looks like when it’s properly done. There is the proper space set out for it in the Walker and it’s going to be filled with our work - something we’ve done!

Working with Vince the artist has been boss, we didn’t know he was a professional artist at first but when we found out the session just kept on getting better and better. We really like painting and arts, so this is brilliant to be able to do this.

We’re going to be dead proud when we go into the Walker and see our ‘Lambanana, and people say “did you see that Superfiveadaybanana?” and ask us “wow, are you the one’s who did that?” We think that people will be surprised when they find out it is kids that have painted this ‘Lambanana! They might think that kids have designed it, but that it’s been painted by professionals, but when they find out it’s us kids that have done the painting, with a little help from Vince, I think they’ll be shocked!

Our ‘Lambanana will have different textures, details and effects and hopefully people will be able to stroke it. There should be some information next to it at the walker that can tell people about healthy eating and ‘five a day’ and tell people what to eat and where to get it from. So our ‘Lambanana not only looks good, but has a purpose too! The normal Superlambanana is just yellow but ours is dead bright and colourful!”

The next session will see the group adding more layers of paint onto the Superfiveadaybanana and starting to add textures to the fruit. A different group of young people from Kensington Junior Youth Inclusion Project will be coming along to work on the ‘Lambanana next time so more images, interviews and news on progress to follow… keep those eyes and those bananas peeled…