The weekend of 6-7 September, 2014, saw the Bamboo Society of Australia (BSA) put on its first Bamboo Sculpture competition. The competition was held in conjunction with the Living Community Festival at the Mullumbimby Community Gardens (7 Sept.). The weekend was, in a nutshell, fantastic.

The comp attracted a dozen entries, each one distinctive, and diverse, in its own way. The judges must have struggled. First prize and the People’s Choice Award went to the two entries by the same creators. There are lots of images of the weekend on the BSA Facebook page.

The event was made more fascinating for me because I was on site for the two days leading up to the exhibition. Most of the entries were so large that they were (re)constructed on site. Just by hanging about and lending a hand here and there, I picked up some useful tips on working with bamboo. On the Sunday there were also impromptu demonstrations around the BSA bamboo yurt. Pictured above is Munir from Giant Grass. Munir travelled from Melbourne to create the sculpture behind him. Here, he is showing a fascinated crowd how to bend bamboo using heat, one of the processes he used to make the sculpture of bamboo funnels.

Also present was Victor Cusack. Victor is well-known in Australia as probably our most prolific writer on Bamboo. He was on hand to promote the beautiful new edition of his book, Bamboo World.

It was something of a revelation for me to meet a group of people who are so passionate about bamboo and so generous with their knowledge. Really, all they talked about, with very few exceptions, was bamboo, in its innumerable manifestations – growing, collecting, constructing with, creating with… Future events are planned. Keep an eye on the BSA website.