Heide Art Bubs at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen is one of my favourite outings with preschool kids in Melbourne. It’s educational, fun, creative, interactive – and delicious!
Our latest Heide Art Bubs visit was a craft session inspired by the museum’s latest exhibition ‘Future Primitive‘. Future Primitive brings together works by 19 artists from Australia and New Zealand to explore a renewed engagement with primitivism in contemporary art.
The session started off with a short storytime with the classic book about using your imagination – Antoinette Portis’ ‘Not a Stick‘. Then the families explored several of the artworks in Future Primitive, making noises with the electrical circuits in Dylan Martorell’s ‘Roadside Picnic’, discussing the materials used in sculptures and talking about pictures of…sticks.
Because when we got to the craft session, it was all about decorating a stick! Who would have thought a ‘not-a-stick’ could engage toddlers for so long?
Lady AB concentrated very hard on threading buttons onto wire and twisting pipe cleaners around her stick. It was the kind of activity which could be done at home but it’s something I’d never think of, or feel I have time, to do. She was so proud of her final effort that she wielded it around the sculpture park like a pied piper and have not let Baby 2.0 touch it at all at home.
Interspersed with the crafting was a delicious morning tea catered by Cafe Vue at Heide. Gourmet food that can easily double up as lunch! Lady AB and I stuffed ourselves full of fruit, buttery ham and cheese sandwiches and wedges of creamy lamingtons.
Heide Museum of Modern Art run Heide Art Bubs once a month on a Thursday or Friday. The tickets are $20 for adults ($16 for members/concession) and in theory an adult can bring as many kids as you like for free, though I think only kids 2-5 will really get the most out of the stories and the craft.  You’re able to visit the rest of the exhibition and the galleries afterwards at your leisure too.Â
Check out their Kids and Families program to sign up for upcoming Heide Art Bubs sessions.
Heide Art Bubs, Heide Museum of Modern Art, 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen +61 3 9850 1500
Open Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm   Â
Closed Mondays
