A season of play launches at QUAD

QUAD is back at it again with another year of interactive family friendly exhibitions and workshop activities for the summer holidays.

This summer, throughout the exhibition spaces, QUAD present a ‘Summer of Play’ featuring family-friendly and thought-provoking exhibitions by Derby-based artists John Whall and Tracey Meek, and the return of the interactive creative learning space ‘Play & Display’. All exhibitions are free to enjoy and will be open each day from 12pm until 6pm from Saturday 20th July.

‘Summer of Play’ is part of ‘New Worlds, New Discoveries’ – a year-long theme across QUAD’s visual arts programme in tandem with the ongoing cinema and film programme, ‘New Worlds of Cinema’. The ambition for ‘Summer of Play’ is to provide experiences that focus on play and playfulness, but also to explore ways of sharing, care and discovery.

In QUAD Gallery 1 is ‘Passage to PlayLAND’ by digital participation artist John Whall bringing together two exciting interactive and family-friendly immersive installations, PlayLAB and PlayLAND. These are shared, playful experiences that invite the gallery visitor to fully engage with the physical space and to consider their local environment. Both projects were commissioned and originally exhibited at LEVEL Centre, Rowsley, and have been adapted for QUAD.

QUAD Gallery 2 will be taken over by ‘Play & Display’ – the interactive, visitor led education project – a creative workshop room and ever-changing exhibition space where curiosity and playfulness are encouraged, and where visitors and their creations become part of the exhibition!

In QUAD’s Extra Gallery Spaces, Tracey Meek will exhibit her project – in partnership with the LEVEL Centre – titled ‘Isolation Art Mail’. This project originally took place during the COVID-19 lockdown as a way of collectively sharing experiences through art, offering comfort in difficult times. This playful work features over 100 UK and international participants.

QUAD Arts Programme Manager/ FORMAT Festival Director Peter Bonnell says:

“QUAD’s Summer of Play features family friendly fun art activities and exciting exhibition experiences! Drop by our free exhibitions including Passage to PlayLAND by Derby-based digital artist John Whall where visitors can play in a digital landscape in the main gallery. In the Extra Gallery Spaces see artist Tracey Meek’s ‘Isolation Art Mail’ exhibition – a playful project about care and comfort in difficult times. Then drop into our workshop space ‘Play & Display’, full of fun creative making activities and drop-in workshops.”