Client:
The Lowry
Title:
So You Want To Be An Artist?
“Hemisphere's imaginative use of interactivity, made the exhibition as much of a fun experience for kids as it was a learning one”
Michael Simpson
Head of Exhibitions, The Lowry
A fun exhibition for families, introducing them to the ideas, techniques and inspirations of an artist's life.
Read moreSo You Want to be an Artist? was The Lowry's first-ever exhibition specifically designed for families and was devised especially to appeal to kids aged 2 to 12.
The aim of the show was to help young people discover what being an artist is all about, using the life and work of LS Lowry himself to create a hands-on, interactive journey through different aspects of being an artist. The exhibition's key topics - making marks in different media, life drawing, colour, painting, framing and selling - were brought to life through a series of 'activity areas' where children could learn how to draw, decide which materials to use and what their inspiration will be.
All elements of the exhibition were tailored to the needs of its younger audience, including hanging all artworks much lower than the standard height for the gallery and creating low level bespoke pencil-shaped seats, with the added quirk that the hardness of the seat varied according to the hardness of the pencil type.
The exhibition's ultimate challenge was to allow children to work with paint in a gallery environment. To do this, we created a deliberately over-the-top 'hazard-warning' area that children could enter and make lots of mess before exiting through a 'decontamination zone' to make sure they didn't transfer paint around the rest of the exhibition.
