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DIY  Cardboard Workshop

Time: 1:00 - 3:00 pm, Mon 10 Oct, 2022
Location: RMIT First Site Gallery


We invite you to participate in a DIY cardboard workshop that will use mask-making as a way to introduce three Finnish social innovations, the Finnish Women's Association, Seurasaari Christmas Path, and Free Education. During the workshop, we will provide cardboard materials, and guide you through making a unique mask of your own, as we model how to make there masks: Santa Claus, the Christmas Goat, and a Women’s mask. There will also be opportunities for photographic portraits with our modelled masks, and to decorate a simple mask to take away. Come and join us to explore, discuss, and create a unique Christmas gift!

How the workshop connects to three Finnish Social Innovations:

In Finland, usually on the Sunday before Christmas, volunteers create the children's Seurasaari Christmas Path, a one-day event with singing, play, storytelling, activity classes, drama, a maze of straw, and of course Santa and Mrs. Claus. With ‘Folding Social’ opening as Christmas draws near, it is a timely moment to share the story of Finland’s Christmas Path, while introducing participants to possibilities of creating with recyclable materials.

Taking inspiration from the Finnish Women’s Association, we will discuss female empowerment and encourage women to decide who and what they want to be.

Finland advocates free education and the right and duty of all children and youth to study and learn. The DIY Cardboard workshop offers free learning about mask making and cardboard art creation, as a fun way to engage with the history and egalitarian values underpinning Finnish education.

Acknowledgement of Country

We would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people of the Kulin nation, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which the ‘Folding Social’ exhibition has been curated, designed, and maintained. We acknowledge the art-making, play and creativity that the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people have fostered on these lands. We acknowledge that sovereignty never ceded and we pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.


©MCD at RMIT University