The Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

203 Vibrant and ongoing relationships with leading contemporary artists have been developed through Kids’ APT. In fact, collaboration is the key component of the program. Working with Gallery staff, artists create their interactive projects — a process that enables artists to explore anew the fundamental ideas and concepts concerning them. In recognition of children’s varying interests and abilities, Kids’ APT comprises a range of media, from drawing activities to large- scale multimedia projects. Internationally acclaimed artist Cai Guo Qiang, whose retrospective was held at the Guggenheim Museum in 2008, developed one of the first interactives for Kids’ APT in 1999. Designed to complement his major work in APT3, Blue dragon and bridge crossing — a large-scale installation encompassing a 30-metre-long bamboo suspension bridge constructed over the Gallery’s Watermall — Cai extended an invitation to children to design and construct a bridge using the simplest of materials: tape and cane. To provide children with inspiration, the artist sketched 76 line drawings of various bridges, revealing varied approaches, some fanciful, others basic and fundamental. Over the course of the exhibition, children visiting with parents and carers engaged with the artist’s ideas through the engineering of their own bridge models. As part of Kids’ APT in 2002, senior Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama worked with the Gallery to develop The obliteration room , referencing the obsessive repetition of dots that Kusama has incorporated into her work since the 1950s. Kusama’s space for children was fashioned in the style of a typical Australian living room, furnished with ordinary household items. Though the entire room and its contents were initially painted stark white, children ‘obliterated’ the environment by covering every surface with multicoloured dot stickers of various sizes. By the close of the exhibition five months later, the space had been transformed from a pristine interior into a spectacularly colourful and accreted environment. Contrasting with the spectacular, many Kids’ APT artist projects have also involved children engaged in quiet contemplation. Chinese artist Song Dong’s Writing with water 2002 featured an installation of large rocks upon which children could write their thoughts or draw pictures with water and traditional calligraphy brushes. While evoking the revered art form of calligraphy, Writing with water also related to a performative aspect of the artist’s practice and his ongoing investigations into the passing of time. Launched in 2006 with the opening of the Gallery of Modern Art, Kids’ APT5 featured 14 commissioned interactives. Artist Khadim Ali travelled from Pakistan to his home region of Bamiyan in Afghanistan — where the Taliban destroyed the colossal ancient Buddha sculptures in 2001 — to undertake workshops with the local school children. The Bamiyan drawing project Yayoi Kusama’s The obliteration room , for Kids’ APT 2002, encouraged children to cover a white room with coloured dots / Photograph: Richard Stringer Cai Guo Qiang’s bridge building activity for Kids’ APT 1999