Chadstone has a hands-on school holiday offering designed to get kids creating, building and imagining together as part of its inaugural Light to Night festival.
At the centre of the festival is a major artistic installation by Australian artist RONE, whose immersive work HOME reimagines a familiar weatherboard house as a layered, atmospheric artwork. While the broader festival explores light, transformation and creative experience across the centre, it is this idea of stepping inside an artwork that has inspired a dedicated kids program built for hands-on participation.
Titled Home in Colour, the school holiday experience invites children into a playful reworking of the HOME concept, turning it into a large-scale interactive creative space where imagination takes priority. Instead of simply viewing art, kids are encouraged to become part of it.
The experience begins outside with a stylised suburban streetscape, complete with a house façade, fencing, trees and lawn. From there, children step into two purpose-built black-and-white interior spaces, a kitchen and a tool shed, designed as giant colouring environments.
Every surface inside has been hand-drawn by artists in bold outlines, ready to be transformed through colour, pattern and personal expression. Children can draw, paint and design freely, with the option to add their work to the evolving installation or take it home as a keepsake.
What makes the experience unique is its changing nature. As each child contributes, the space becomes a growing collective artwork, shifting daily into something new. It is part creative workshop, part immersive play space, and part public art project shaped by thousands of small hands.
Running throughout the school holidays, Home in Colour offers families an easy, low-cost way to engage with the Light to Night festival while giving kids space to experiment and play in a fully immersive environment.
Tickets are $5 per child, with sessions available daily during the program period.
Home in Colour rubs 12 July at Chadstone Shopping Centre as part of Light to Night. Book tickets at https://www.chadstone.com.au/light-to-night/home-in-colour.
