Sure to be one of the big hits of the summer school holidays the Children’s Art Centre at GoMA has pulled out all the stops for its latest Optimism exhibition.
There are 11 free interactive activities for children developed by some of the exhibiting artists. School aged children will love it and pre-school children will be amused by most of the activities.
I loved the glow-in-the-dark construction panels by Gemma Smith. Adjust your eyes in the darkened room and then set to work making an interlocking masterpiece from fluoro painted pieces.
‘Alien nation embassy’ by Tony Albert gets children to answer questions on the computer and take home a lanyard. The references to indigenous issues are very subtle and I wonder if any of the children connect the topic. A yellow, red and black flag is the biggest clue.
There’s Gabrielle de Vietri’s ‘Just Add Hope’, which is a brightly coloured room with computers and screens with messages based on self-help books. You choose phrases and link them together and they’re instantly sent to your nominated friend’s mobile. Not only will your friend receive your message, you will see it appear on one of the screens around the room. Forget the kids – I would have loved to spend half an hour creating bizarre messages and sending them to everyone I know!
One that’s great for young rev-heads is to walk through the driver’s tunnel to hear car sounds, engines roaring, traffic noise. Created by Thomas Meadowcroft, it’s titled ‘Walk the Car’.
The light open space of the downstairs children’s gallery is transformed into a mass of greenery. Where previously there had been the wonderful silver balloons as part of the Warhol exhibition, there’s a hanging garden – peaceful and sunny. Emily Floyd’s ‘Make a Manifesto’ asks children to make a paper pot, plant some seeds and take them home to watch them grow. Youngsters might not know what a manifesto is but they won’t care because this activity is lovely and simple.
Draw museum pictures in the frame. Use the wonderful paper frames that transform the drawings children create. With a stuffed peacock, spiders in jars and collections of all sorts of things it’s a mini museum and the frames sharpen the view. Created by Michael Zavros.
Leunig’s large-scale installation piece runs the entire length of the Children’s Art Centre. Let them follow the ‘Story’. There’s more too for families to enjoy and certainly enough to fill in a few hours.
Plus, children won’t just want to be inside the kids’ area. To help young visitors to engage with the works on display, art work labels written especially for kids feature throughout the exhibition.
Explore the main galleries with them. My children loved the vespa scooters transformed into cutesy animals (The stags 2008), the dark corridor where reflections are confused in mirrors (Of water, by Natasha Johns-Messenger), the cool white wonderland created by Kathy Temin that’s reminiscent of a Dr Seuss setting (My monument:White forest 2008) . The videos of the chubby dancing man made us laugh and the children could appreciate the art of Arlene TextaQueen (The Brides of Frank 2008) with my daughter exclaiming ‘that would take a LOT of textas!’. The bright contemporary art featured in Optimism entirely suits vivid young imaginations.
The controversial and graphic drawings of Del Kathryn Barton are in a separate room and the Gallery advises that the content is not appropriate for children.
The Children’s Art Centre and Optimism will be a highlight of the summer school holidays.
