Fiona Hall: Uneasy Seasons is the NGV’s latest exhibition for kids and teens. It invites them to explore natural habitats and the changing seasons in an interactive and immersive environment. 

The large scale installation is Fiona Hall’s first work especially for children and teens. It consists of two separate rooms, each containing a wooden tree house.

The first house is a summer-themed tree house, which is brightly lit and set amongst a gorgeous hand-painted wallpaper full of blossoms, birds and warm colours.

At the first tree house kids are invited to answer the questions ‘who lives here?’.

Kids take a template, some paper and then can pencil draw and collage real and imagined handmade paper creatures. They can then decorate the roofline by tying their creation to strings so that all the different species make the space their new home.

Along the walls are little nooks where kids can watch video works. The holes are big enough for smaller kids to crawl into, an unintended consequence of the layout I think!

The second room is a winter-themed tree-house, with a darkened environment.

It’s billed as the treehouse ‘for teens’ but really all kids can enjoy it – it’s just that the dark and the skeleton illustrations may frighten some of the junior kids.

Again kids can get creative by designing their own emoji to express their feelings about an environmental, social, or political issue

Some of the decorations dangling on the ceilings are selected for the animations embedded within the mysterious wooden drawers lining the walls.

While Fiona Hall: Uneasy Seasons is not as intricate and involved as some of the previous NGV Children’s Gallery exhibitions, my kids still really enjoyed the craft activities and stayed about 1 hour inside. I don’t think it’s really suitable for babies or toddlers who may not yet have the attention span to sit still and create craft objects.

HOT Tips:

• Not suitable for babies or toddlers
• Suitable for preschoolers (3+ years) who are interested in craft;
• Not much room for prams inside, pram parking outside;
• Head to the NGV Car Wash afterwards for lunch and a run around.
• National Gallery of Victoria is holding a special storytime for under 5s on  Tuesday 5 September. Discover the wild world of animals and their incredible habitats. Inspired by Australian artist Fiona Hall, and her fascination with the natural world, practise your kookaburra laugh, show off your wombat crawl and hear stories from animals around the world.