Digital arts experiences to enjoy from home
With arts venues, events and festivals being cancelled or postponed for the foreseeable future, it’s a good time to start exploring the offerings online.
Here are a list of great quality digital arts resources you can consume from home, including arts education resources for families.
Many of these are completely made available for free or at low-cost to the user, so if you love something, you might consider making a donation to help out artists and arts organisations at this time.
For kids and families
Author talks and workshops
In the next fortnight, the Sydney Opera House will be streaming live digital workshops such as Staging Stories and the Story Factory workshop.
For any parents wanting to give their kids some quality arts education at home, all of the SOH digital education resources are available online with teacher notes.
Storyline Online has a collection of favourite kids books read by famous people, like Arnie the Doughnut read by Chris O’Dowd.
Digital art apps for kids
There are some amazing art apps designed especially for kids by some of the world’s most iconic cultural institutions.
As part of the Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence at Home, Mo Willems invites you into his studio every day for his LUNCH DOODLE. Learners worldwide can draw, doodle and explore new ways of writing by visiting Mo’s studio virtually once a day for the next few weeks.
Tate Kids has art making games, quizzes and videos that will make parents want to play too!
NGAkids interactives offer an entertaining and informative introduction to art and art history, from the US National Gallery of Art. There are a variety of computer-based activities and things to do at home.
Artsology helps kids learn to appreciate the arts by providing them with the opportunity to play games, conduct investigations, and explore different forms of art.
Kids Think Design explores careers in fashion design, graphic design, interior design, book design, product design, film and theatre, architecture, animation, and environmental design.
Virtual museum experiences
From the Sydney Opera House’s Digital Education team, families can access LIVE digital tours from home this week, such as the Guwanyi Walama tour of the Aboriginal history of the site.
The British Museum, located in the heart of London, allows virtual visitors to tour the Great Court and discover the ancient Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies.
The San Diego Zoo has a website just for kids with amazing videos, activities, and games.
You can also tour Yellowstone National Park, and explore the surface of Mars on the Curiosity Rover.
For adults
Virtual art exhibitions and talks
The NGV is sharing daily content and inspiration using the hashtag #NGVEveryDay. You can also visit the NGV website for virtual exhibition tours and talks, and explore NGV Channel for videos, essays and interviews. They’ll be sending frequent updates in their e-newsletter, with lots more content to follow and activities for kids and families especially for school holidays.
For those unable to proceed with travel plans, the Google Arts and Culture app, available on iOS and Android (and web), is like Google Street View for galleries and places of cultural interest. It allows the user to explore highlights or entire floors of institutions like MoMA New York, Uffizi Gallery, Florence and The State Hermintage Museum in Russia.
Virtual orchestras
The Berliner Philharmoniker can be enjoyed from your TV, computer, tablet or smartphone thanks to the Digital Concert Hall. Each season, around 40 concerts are broadcasted live in HD and there are hundreds of recordings, numerous interviews, Education Programme films. Redeem the voucher code BERLINPHIL by 31 March and receive free access to all concerts and films in the Digital Concert Hall.
Courses
MoMA has a range of free online courses, on topics like What is Contemporary Art? and Seeing Through Photographs.
Author and speaker Catherine Deveny is sharing her TEN online writing classes for free on Facebook (by donation). The first two episodes are already available and more coming soon.
With thanks to all those who have contributed suggestions, including the Sydney Opera House, NGV.
We’d also like to credit other pages and posts where we have sourced this list from, including Jules Buckland on Facebook.
If you have items to add to this list, email us at info@thepatternmakers.com.au
Cover illustration by Rose Blake is from Meet the Artist: Andy Warhol published by Tate at https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/make/paint-draw/make-pop-art-warhol