Colourful community collaboration

By Lua Ikenasio

Jun 10, 2025

Vivid client Nathan Dri enjoyed the mural-making process and working with the Shine Bright students. Photo by JORDAN TOWNROW

Long-time neighbours Shine Bright Echuca South Kindergarten and Vivid have joined hands for the first time to collaborate on a mural.

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The mural is made up of over 80 individual wooden pieces.

Local art business Bottle and Brush designed the mural and shapes, Bunnings donated many of the materials and Echuca Men’s Shed cut out all the shapes.

Vivid executive manager resources Shannon Walker said the project was a way to bridge the gap between Vivid and Shine Bright.

“The kinder have been there for ever, as have we, but we’ve never ever done something together in all of these years,” she said.

“So I (wanted) to bridge that gap, and we thought, what can we do here?

“The guys have loved it, working on something, and now they can look at it every day and have it be a reminder of what we can do by doing it together.”

Vivid's Nathan Dri helping Tommy Hare and Delilah Lovison. Photo: Supplied.

The project aimed to provide an inclusive experience that supported all abilities and individual sensory needs of participants.

Participants have worked on the mural over 10 weeks of two-hour sessions, led by Bottle and Brush owner Caroline Smith.

Vivid clients painted the backgrounds of the individual shapes before taking them to the kindergarten for students to add dots to them.

The clients also created a frame out of individual wooden slats, which they painted to resemble a rainbow.

Once the slats return to the Vivid site, the kindergarten students will be able to add their hand prints to it before the shapes are attached.

Michael Williams and Nathan Dri holding two of the over 80 pieces. Photo by JORDAN TOWNROW

Bottle and Brush owner Caroline Smith said the Vivid team had really enjoyed the mural-making process.

“They’ve been awesome ... for a lot of them, it was a therapeutic process as well, just the enjoyment of being immersed in doing something different,” she said.

“It’s a sense of working on a common goal as well, they’ve enjoyed seeing where they’re starting from and understanding the goal of what they’re trying to achieve.

“I think being part of something on a grander scale is an exciting element, it’s something that’s forever there that they contributed to.”

The program was made possible through a grant from the Campaspe Shire Council as part of its Community Grant Program.

The mural will be officially launched on Friday, June 20 at 10.30am at the Vivid building at 238 High St, Echuca.