'Pipilotti Rist: Sip my Ocean' with Kids - Review - Sydney
Pipilotti Rist: Sip my Ocean opened on the 1st of November and we were so happy to pop in last week to review the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA). We had been looking forward to seeing this exhibition since its announcement last year!
Photo credit: @busycitykids
The exhibition presents a wide spectrum of Pipilotti’s career from her early single-channel videos of the 1980s to her large-scale audio-visual installations and recent immersive environments. Her work is an ode to the heart and the intellect, to the big emotions that sustain us as human beings and to the beauty of the world and the universe around us.
Sip My Ocean 1996 and Ever is Over All 1997 - Photo credit: @busycitykids
Pipilotti’s dazzling environments plunge viewers into colourful projections which explore the relationship between nature, the body and technology and plunge us into her colourful projections we did!
Kleines Vorstadthirn (Small Suburb Brain) 1990-2007 and The Innocent Collection 1985-approx 2032 - Photo credit: @busycitykids
Even little Miss was making her own projections standing in front of one of Pipilotti's projections and having a bit of fun!
Sip My Ocean 1996 and Ever is Over All 1997 - Photo credit: @busycitykids
Little Miss and her brother were fascinated with the high fi projections of the different ocean scenes at the beginning and other projections of nature and body throughout the exhibition.
A La Belle Etoile (Under the Sky) 2007 - Photo credit: @busycitykids
They especially loved the projections in the A La Belle Etoile (Under the Sky) 2007 section of the exhibition and walking into the mouths of people in the videos.
Administrating Eternity 2011 - Photo credit: @busycitykids
Net curtains projecting Administrating Eternity were free flowing and one by one projected onto each other.
4th Floor to Mildness 2016 - Photo credit: @busycitykids
The 4th Floor to Mildness was an interesting room where we laid down on beds and viewed water and decay of organic plants and where we were taken into the feeling of water, mud, slime, molecules and atoms. The sound and visuals of water really made us relax on the beds and also have a nap ha!
Your Room Opposite the Opera 1994 to 2017 - Photo credit: @busycitykids
Your Room Opposite the Opera brings projections to the exhibition with vivid, colourful and sensual videos.
Your Room Opposite the Opera 1994 to 2017 - Photo credit: @busycitykids
The room is filled with furniture, cushions, tables and chairs and a large bed with star projections which little Miss and her brother couldn't resist jumping into. When Pipilotti makes you a bed - you have to jump in it!
Pixelwald Motherboard (Pixel Forest Mutterplatte) 2016 - Photo credit: @busycitykids
The most Instagrammable room of Pipilotti Rist: Sip my Ocean must be the Pixel Forest Mutterplatte where you can walk amongst a forest of 3000 LED (light-emitting diode) lights as they represent pixels in a television screen.
Photo credit: @busycitykids
There are also two other rooms Das Zimmer (The Room) 1994-2017 with giant sofas and a small tv monitor projecting Pipilotti works from 1994 to 2017 as well as the Sleeping Pollen 2014 space where seven mirrored spheres project images of herbs and flora.
Photo credit: @busycitykids
You can listen and view more of Pipilotti Rist's works outside of the exhibition using the monitors and headphones provided.
Photo credit: @busycitykids
Drop into the free creative space every Sunday at the MCA for Sundays with Pipilotti and experiment with low fi mirrored light and projections to create dream-like collages inspired by the artist's practice. Free drop in on level 3 on Sundays 10:30 to 4pm exhibition ticket not included.
We loved Pipilotti Rist: Sip my Ocean! We loved walking throughout the exhibition and experiencing Pipilotti's vivid projections that explore the relationship between nature, the body and technology. We loved how some rooms took us out of our comfort zone and forced us to relax and open our minds. There is mild nudity in some projections but we didn't notice a great deal of it.
The exhibition is great for kids but as the gallery's staff will remind you on your visit - installations are not to be touched and in some areas shoes are not permitted so I had a quick chat to the little ones before we entered the exhibition. Areas where shoes must be taken off: The couches in the Das Zimmer - The Room, the beds in the 4th Floor to Mildness' room and in some spaces where they are cushions it's easier without shoes. This at times meant that we found ourselves without shoes which was actually calming.
Some installations are very tempting to touch especially the Pixel Forest Mutterplatte where little ones and adults are reminded not to touch the installation. Apart from being mindful of those things, you can walk around the exhibition and feel relax. My little ones loved walking around and immersing themselves into the projections.
For more ideas on what to do with the kids in Sydney, head to our blog, our daily spots list or pools & beaches or playgrounds list. And for a full list of parents rooms around Sydney, head to our parents room page.