Te Puke mural project taps creativity at town and rural schools

Te Puke Volunteer Fire Brigade's Brian Pinkerton, left, and Steve Hennum putting up one of the 11 new school murals in Te Puke town centre. Photo / Stuart Whitaker

Te Puke Town Centre is getting a bit of a shake-up with new school murals going up around the CBD.

The Creative Te Puke Forum project sees the district's school create new murals every four years, with those murals put on walls throughout the town centre with the help of Te Puke Volunteer Fire Brigade. The old murals are returned to the school.

The forum's Kassie Ellis says the theme for the 2020 murals was ''local inspiration''.
Each school is given 13 test pots and the chance to interpret the theme in their own way.

She says schools' approaches differ, with some allowing students to create the mural, while at others, teachers and parents also have input.

The boards were delivered to the school in July and then gathered back up in mid-October.

''Creative Te Puke Forum apply an anti-graffiti coat and then put them up,'' says Kassie.

The process takes place over several weeks, with three new murals now on the Oxford St wall of Life Pharmacy, the Te Puke Hotel wall facing Jellicoe St, and Pizza Hut.

Kassie says one of the features of this year's murals is that a strong Māori cultural element has come through in designs.

''The designs themselves are amazing. People are really showing what their school represents and what they want their fellow schools and the district to know about how they identify as a school. The Māori designs and tikanga that's coming through is amazing.''

She says generally the 2020 murals have been better planned, better thought-out and more time has been taken on them.

One of Creative Te Puke Forum's purposes is to beautify the town and surrounding districts and Kassie says the mural project gets all schools - town and rural - involved.

''The kids love driving round the streets and seeing where their mural ended up,'' she says. ''It's a big project but it's a fantastic project for the community.''