APT 2002 Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia : Report

SENSORIMOTOR Observations took place in the following sensorimotor activity areas: Mirrorama, Squirts, Ping Pong Portraits, Flying Angels (craft) , Scent Detectives, Swarming Locusts , Bangalan Orchestra, Barbeque and the Film Festival . Features of the sensorimotor activity areas that family groups responded positively to include: • Fun / funny ( Mirrorama, Squirts, Film Festival ) • Craft ( Swarming Locusts , Flying Angels ) • Making noise ( Bangalan Orchestra ) • Novelty ( Ping Pong Portraits, Squirts ) • Olfactory ( Scent Detective ) Many of the sensorimotor activities provided opportunities for parent-child interaction such as laughing together at Mirrorama and Squirts, and showing children what to do at Scent Detective, Ping Pong Portraits, Flying Angels ( craft ), and Swarming Locusts . Although the experiences were enjoyable, few families appeared to connect the activity with APT artists and art works. Connections to art were enhanced however with assistance from QAG staff and volunteers. QUIET Observations were conducted at the following quiet activity areas: Animate, Fly Down Zone, and Storytelling . Adults appeared to enjoy the quiet areas just as much as the children did. Features of the storytelling sessions that families reacted favourably to were authenticity, music and singing, delivery (presence), interaction and participation, repetition and humour. Typical behaviour during Animate was for children to enter the room and make themselves comfortable by sitting or lying down on the pillows. Children appeared to respond to the sound, colour and humour used in the films. In the Fly Down Zone observed behaviours included children reading books, adults reading books to children and children ‘playing’ on the bean bag chairs. TECHNOLOGY Family groups were observed at the Who am we? computer interactive and TV You . The Who am we? computer interactive was very popular as evidenced by the long queue. Adults as well as children demonstrated enthusiasm for this activity. The typical family group behaviour consisted of parents telling children what to do, children running to collect the image (waiting anxiously), then looking together to find their faces. The location of TV You appeared to impact the numbers of family groups who experienced the activity. Interaction time ranged from very short to longer periods. Few people were observed reading sandwich board. Children were seen laughing, dancing, jumping and posing. TV You appealed to children across all age ranges. AREAS FOR POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT There were a few weak points in the ‘Summer Spectacular’ program and activities, but these were minor. Nonetheless, the following recommendations may assist with future program and exhibition design considerations: • Connections to art works could have been made stronger – interpretive links were primarily made by Gallery staff. In the future, staff may want to think carefully about how to enable a strong presence of adult/gallery facilitators to be present as guides for children’s learning around art work sites. Trained guides and volunteers seem essential for this part of the experience to work to maximum efficacy. • Links to art works could also be made stronger by locating activities closer to the original work of art. We understand that this is not always possible, but noted that many works were not adequately explored by the visitors since the activity and the art works were often viewed and experienced in isolation from one another. For this audience (and any new audience), the connecting points should be made more evident. • Though the Gallery attempted to bring the audience into contact with practicing/exhibiting artists, there was little evidence that this aspect of the program worked effectively. In the future, it may be valuable to build a stronger program for audiences to meet the artist – perhaps by an increased presence of artists. Training for this kind of work may be beneficial, as well. 111