QAGOMA’s ‘Kids On Tour’ Brings Interactive Contemporary Art to the Gladstone Region

QAGOMA’s ‘Kids On Tour’ Brings Interactive Contemporary Art to the Gladstone Region

Exciting interactive activities for children created by a leading international artist and the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) will visit the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum from 10.30am, Saturday 5 April 2014.

The Gallery & Museum has partnered with QAGOMA in hosting the 'Kids on Tour' family fun days for a number of years now.  Last year for 'Kids 'APT7 on Tour' over 250 excited children and their families attended the colourful event.  This year 'Kids on Tour: Cai Guo-Qiang' promises to be just as enjoyable.

The ‘Kids on Tour: Cai Guo-Qiang’ program, proudly supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation, includes hands-on making activities and multimedia interactives developed in collaboration with Chinese-born, New York-based artist, Cai Guo-Qiang, whose landmark exhibition ‘Falling Back to Earth’ is currently showing at GOMA in Brisbane until May 11, 2014.

QAGOMA Director Chris Saines said the popularity of the exhibition and the accompanying Children’s Art Centre project Let’s Create an Exhibition with a Boy Named Cai had been overwhelming, with 60,000 children visiting GOMA since it opened in November.

‘We are very excited to be able to share the project with audiences in regional Queensland,’ Mr Saines said. ‘‘Kids on Tour’ reinterprets Cai Guo-Qiang’s popular Bridge Crossing activity, first staged for the Kids’ APT program at the ‘Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ in 1999, in which children use bamboo and masking tape to create their own small bridges inspired by the artist’s work.  It also features activities from Let’s Create an Exhibition with a Boy Named Cai, inviting children to participate in Cai’s working methods and create their own miniature exhibitions.’

Visitors can make their own small-scale installations using templates designed by the artist, and create spectacular multimedia ‘gunpowder drawings’.  A short animated film about the art and globe-trotting adventures of Cai Guo-Qiang will also screen.

The QAGOMA Children’s Art Centre is sponsored by Santos GLNG.  ‘As a proud Australian company, Santos has a strong track record of investing the benefits of a world-class gas industry back into community events,’ Santos Vice President Queensland Trevor Brown said. ‘We’re delighted to support the ‘Kids on Tour’ program, which will bring cutting edge art activities to children throughout Queensland.  Helping to bring this interactive art project to regional Queensland is just one example of how Santos GLNG is delivering benefits for communities across the state.’

Thanks to Santos GLNG, one child that attends 'Kids on Tour' at the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum on Saturday April 5 will win their very own iPad! Three lucky runners up will take home copies of the book, Let’s Create an Exhibition with a Boy Named Cai. 

If your family would like to attend this event, bookings are appreciated, phone 4976 6766. The Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum is located on the corner of Goondoon & Bramston Streets, Gladstone.  It is open 10am-5pm, Monday to Saturday with FREE admission.  The Gallery & Museum will be closed Good Friday, but open Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday as well as ANZAC Day.