IAG Kids: Make Yourself at Home
Alice Nightingale | Cake 2025, Soft Sculpture. Image courtesy of the Artist.
25 Jul 2026 — 8 Nov 2026
Alice Nightingale | Cake 2025, Soft Sculpture. Image courtesy of the Artist.
| Dates | Saturday 25 July to Sunday 08 November |
|---|---|
| Times | Open daily, 10am - 5pm |
| Cost | FREE |
| Booking | Facilitated and organised groups require a confirmed booking to visit this exhibition. NOTE: NO GROUP BOOKINGS AVAILABLE DURING SCHOOL HOLIDAYS. |
| Age | All ages welcome |
A playful, sensory exhibition that explores what home means to children.
In Make yourself at home, home is shown as a feeling, made up of memories, people, stories and the everyday things that make us feel safe, calm and cared for. When you’re young, home is often the centre of your world. It’s where games are invented, stories are shared, snacks are made, and favourite objects are kept close.
Through art, textures and familiar objects, this exhibition invites children and families to explore the sights, sounds and feelings of home, from the smell of baking in the kitchen, to the comfort of a well‑loved blanket, or the special meaning held in a treasured family object.
The artists encourage visitors to see home through their eyes and to reflect on the small, everyday moments that help us feel we belong.
What you’ll discover:
- Sensory Memories – artworks inspired by kitchens, family meals and favourite foods that remind us of being together
- Comfort & Care – soft textures and gentle forms that evoke calm, safety and quiet spaces
- Rhythms of Home – playful works inspired by music, movement, games and daily routines
- Family & Friends – stories about the people (and pets!) who turn a house into a home
Designed for children and their grown‑ups, Make yourself at home is a welcoming space to explore, imagine and connect together.
FEATURED ARTISTS
Artist portrait, Arwin Hidayat. Courtesy of the Artist.
Arwin Hidayat
Based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Arwin uses paint, clay, and traditional crafts like batik and Wayang puppetry to honour his community and Javanese culture. Arwin honours the past by bringing his childhood memories and his late father's stories back to life.
In his artwork, bright, shapes of people and animals overlap and build on top of each other to show how villagers rely on one another to thrive in busy everyday life. You might notice that some of the shapes in Arwin’s work blend and melt together; it’s how he shows that home lives on in the beautifully fading dreams and memories we carry with us.
Arwin keeps his connection to home alive through memories, traditions, family and community, which he says are his “source of power and spirit”.
Artist portrait, Alice Nightingale. Courtesy of the Artist.
Alice Nightingale
Alice creates clothes and soft sculptures from her home studio in Tulmur, Ipswich. At twelve, Alice’s grandmother gifted her a sewing machine. It became a lifelong friend. Rebelling against fast fashion, Alice works slowly, with care, and in small batches. She hunts for fabrics in second-hand shops and uses bold, vintage florals inherited from her grandma. When a piece of fabric isn’t quite right, she prints her own designs by hand. Because Alice lives and works under the same roof, her daily life and art constantly overlap.
You can see this in her plush sculptures of nostalgic items you might find in the kitchen. She recreates wholesome, comforting things that bring people together, like a hot rotisserie chicken, a bag of grapes, or a birthday cake waiting patiently on the dining table.
Artist portrait, Norton Fredericks. Courtesy of Level Up Gold Coast
Norton Fredericks
Born in Tulmur, Ipswich, Norton now lives on Kombumerri Country on the Gold Coast. Norton’s uses ancient craft techniques alive that have been passed down for thousands of years. When using their hands to create with organic materials, Norton thinks about how nature doesn’t follow strict rules. Nature is unpredictable, unique, fluid and diverse – just like people.
This process also makes them think about the things that threaten our environment and what makes us human. Most of Norton’s artworks are made for a particular place, where the location adds to the meaning of the artwork. Pillows is a new work created for this exhibition, Make Yourself at Home.
The Children’s Gallery is a space where Norton spent time and felt safe as a teenager. By bringing their artwork into a space that offered them comfort and security, they remind us that feeling safe in a room is exactly what allows us to be ourselves and feel at home.
Artist portrait, Sam Tupou. Courtesy of the Artist.
Sam Tupou
Born in Dunedin, New Zealand, Sam now lives and works on Gimuy Country in Cairns.
Sam’s art explores his Tongan and Polynesian heritage. He mixes family photos with traditional Pacific Island patterns. When these layers blend, they turn into large, colourful pixels that look like old 1980s arcade games.
The final images are blurry and hard to see clearly. It is difficult to tell who is in the picture or where it was taken.
A fuzzy image can feel frustrating, like a memory you cannot quite catch. Sam treats this as a creative invitation to use your imagination to see yourself and your loved ones in his artwork.
Related programs
Alice Nightingale | Cake 2025, Soft Sculpture. Image courtesy of the Artist.
Toddler Time: Make Yourself At Home
31 Jul 2026 — 06 Nov 2026
Join us in our Children's Gallery on Friday mornings for play-based explorations of our current IAG Kids exhibition.