Every parent knows the desperation of trying to find something to do with their kids that isn't mind-numbingly tedious. There are, after all, only so many soft plays a human can handle. And while taking the little ones to a museum or gallery may seem like a nice way of culturally enriching your child, it can also be fraught with danger: smashed sculptures, torn paintings, and not to mention the risk of boring your child to literal tears. But there are plenty of art exhibitions that are perfect for kids in London, and this regularly updated list will pick the best of them.
What do you want from a child-friendly art exhibition? Colour, fun, interactivity, and an almost total lack of breakables. These exhibitions should tick most of those boxes for you. Good luck.
In a dizzying cacophony of notes and tones, The Vinyl Factory is loudly announcing that it’s back to its best. In a warren of concrete bunkers deep beneath the strand, the masters of high end immersive AV art have pulled together some big hits. ‘Reverb’ is a celebration of speakers, drums, beats, songs and noises, of the links between music and art.
Why it's good for kids: It's bright, it's mysterious, it's loud, it's interactive.
Artists spent centuries making art about light – the divine rays of the Renaissance, the shimmering seascapes of Turner, the foggy hazes of the Impressionists – but it wasn’t until the 1970s that anyone really thought to make art with light. British artist Anthony McCall was one of the first, creating pioneering films that used projectors to trace shapes in the air, somehow seeming to turn nothingness solid.
Why it's good for kids: There's space to run through the lights, there's very little to break, and the sensation of walking into walls of light is a delight.
There’s a primal urge in us to return to the cave. The cave is where we, as early-humans, once dwelt, and Goshka Macuga is ushering us back home. The Polish-born, London-based artist has filled Bloomberg’s gallery with vast gleaming stalactites and stalagmites.
Why it's good for kids: The space is very child-friendly, and the art is all gloopy and weird.
Alvaro Barrington is letting you in. He’s opening his arms, opening the doors to his childhood home, opening the windows into his memories. To walk into the London-based artist’s Duveen commission is to walk into the Grenadian shack he grew up in.
Why it's good for kids: The big, wide-open spaces of the Duveen, combined with Barrington's colourful approach and spaces to sit, make for a perfect kids' art day out.
In a Wakefield hospital in 1980, at 2:54pm, while Sebastian Coe was running the 1500m wearing the number 254, Jason Wilsher-Mills’s parents were being told that he had only a few years to live. A bout of chicken led to his immune system attacking itself. He was hospitalised and paralysed from the neck down. But the doctors were wrong: he survived.
Why it's good for kids: There are tons of interactive elements, including things to move around and buttons to push.
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