QUT’s Winter holiday program saw The Cube come alive with over 3,700 budding geologists, nature explorers, and aspiring artists. The holiday program, inspired by The Cube’s new project Nature imagined, offered a range of activities for visitors to explore and interact with science, art, and nature.
A guided tour of Nature imagined kicked off the first day of the program. Led by artist Maureen Hansen, visitors were led on a journey of discovery from The Cube to The William Robinson Gallery. Maureen highlighted inside information on the artworks gained through her time as a student of Robinson’s. She demonstrated his brush mark techniques by zooming into the detail on The Cube screens and pointed out the distinctive use of colour in the original paintings displayed at the William Robinson Gallery.
In the Micro Macro sessions, children made their own artworks using source images of plants, animals, and even microbes drawn from the Springbrook region. We were impressed by the wonderful variety of creative responses – from ladybugs, to frogs, birds, and even butterflies! The huge evolving collage was curated by resident artist, Jacqui Smith, from the Scale Free Network. She orchestrated all the elements (and kept chaos at bay!) by adding individual artworks to the collage which was also captured in the time-lapse video recording.
Each morning of the holiday program, an excited group arrived to take part in the Become a budding geologist workshop. Kasia and Adam, QUT Extreme Science Van ambassadors and real geological researchers, lead a group of 8-15 year olds and uncovered the mysterious world of minerals. Over 240 visitors booked into the workshops and the children were amazed to see the colourful rock samples through the high-tech polarizing microscopes and were keen to learn about the techniques used by geologists to identify rocks.
QUT’s Science and Engineering Faculty lent us their augmented reality sandpit and it proved to be a real hit with children! With hand-sanitiser at the ready, visitors were able to shape mountains and valleys generating new topographic projections and even created virtual rain.
To complete the digital scavenger hunt, visitors borrowed iPads and collected fun facts about insects, animals, and plants. These super sleuths did a great job and even had to peek under The Cube stairs to complete some of the scavenger hunt missions. Beanbags, books, and puzzles were the order of the day for those wanting to read and relax.
Thank you to all the enthusiastic art and nature explorers who came along to QUT Winter holiday program! Nature imagined is now in rotation on The Cube screens and the exhibition at the William Robinson Gallery remains open until June 2019.
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