Gallery: Kids Can Color With Their Heads and Feet at This Absurdist Crayon Exhibit

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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria has the coolest kid's museum ever. It's called *Pastello: Draw Act*.
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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    Created by Italian design duo Mathery Studio, *Pastello* is an interactive gallery that turns the act of drawing with crayons into a full body exercise.
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    Photo: Tobias Titz
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    There are three rooms, with walls and tables covered in huge sheets of paper. But instead of 96-count boxes of Crayolas, the Mathery team stocked the exhibit with wildly reinvented versions of crayons.
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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    There are helmets, with nubs of crayon protruding outward...
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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    ...and there are cutlery sets, covered with globs of crayon.
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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    Erika Zorzi, one half of Mathery Studio, says it's meant to be the opposite of the “Please Do Not Touch“ signs seen in most museums.
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    Photo: Tobias Titz
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    "Sometimes, the path is more interesting than the result, we want them to live in the present and to not care about doing the perfect drawing but having fun during the act, during the process.”
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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    Other parts of the exhibit feature huge, spherical crayons that kids can push around on paper.
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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    Other crayons are actually stationary blocks of color, where kids can rub pieces of paper against them to make colorful souvenirs.
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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    Mathery's approach beautifully emphasizes inclusion.
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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    By making it almost impossible to draw inside the lines, every visitor—even kids who might have poor motor skills or physical disabilities—gets to make their mark.
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    Photo: Tobias Titz
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    The result is an exhibit symbiotic with its visitors.
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    Photo: Mathery Studio/National Gallery of Victoria
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    The kids become the artists, and get to design the space just by engaging with it. “The space exists because of the products we designed and the products wouldn’t be the same in another space,” Zorsi says. “The design of both has always been parallel.”
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