Malvern College is delighted to be announced as a finalist in the BSA Boarding Excellence Awards. Shortlisted in the category: Best Artwork Project, Malvern’s submission centred around the brief,Malvern Displaced, and featured the artwork of Year 13 pupil, Mwangi Mungai.
In 2021 Mwangi Mungai left his home in Kenya to board at Malvern College. This global relocation marked the opening chapter of Mwangi’s story and the realisation that art is far more powerful when it tells a story. When it depicts human life and demonstrates how people interact with each other. The artwork submitted, ‘Malvern Displaced’, asked pupils to reflect upon the three times pupils were displaced, since Malvern College was founded in 1865.
- In 1939 and by order of His Majesty’s Office of Works, pupils were exiled to Blenheim Palace to allow the College’s site to be utilised for secret war developments.
- In 1942 the War Cabinet chose Malvern as a relocation site, again forcing pupils to exile to Harrow School.
- 2020 and the Coronavirus pandemic sees all boarding houses closed and lockdowns begin.
Even before Mwangi started initial sketching,‘Malvern Displaced’ was a project that resonated across the school community. A boarding house is a home. For pupils, just like Mwangi, they leave behind a family, pets, belongings and a childhood of familiarity to new surroundings, new relationships, and a new school family. The whole concept of boarding is to provide a home away from home and to nurture and support a child. It’s what Malvern College does extremely well and it’s why a disruption to this stability causes so much uncertainty.
To create the vibrant acrylic piece, Mwangi carefully balanced aspects from the past with modern day school life.Justas paint and etchings are overlaid, so too are icons from 1865, intertwined with wartime scenes, flowing into characters who today can be found strolling the campus.In the bottom right corner, stands Mwangi’s DT Teacher, Mr Stokes, supervising pupils, who appear to be mid-project. The red characters are however pulled from the photo archives and depict two pupils gardening at Blenheim. Note too the contrast between the buildings whose foundations were laid in 1865, to a face in a monitor, Zoom call circa. 2021.
Throughout there is a deliberate repetition of symbols. Mwangi researched the school’s architecture noting the array of arched windows and door frames and used the arch as a bridge between past and present.The lamppost, recreated in Narnia by one of the College’s notable alumni, C.S. Lewis, is iconic to the Malvern community. They are a historical reminder of the achievements of one of our own, and provide security, light and a sense of our own campus wonderland.
Mwangi’s interpretation easily fulfilled the brief. Head of Art, Christine Pritchard praised Mwangi’s use of colours and vibrancy, seeing it as a celebration that we are now reunited post lockdowns.
Mwangi’s artwork hangs in the central corridor of the school’s main building. It’s the busiest walkway in school and a daily reminder of our history, our community, our resilience and our creativity.
Boarding at Malvern College is a long way from Kenya, but through his art, his story telling and his home in the school, Mwangiis now‘Malvern Placed’.