Mike Hewson – The Key's Under the Mat
Highlights
- Experience Mike Hewson's boundary-testing social sculpture at the Nelson Packer Tank, transforming art into a playful community space.
- Explore a vibrant neighbourhood crafted from salvaged materials, inviting all ages to engage, create, and connect.
- Enjoy free access to an innovative exhibition that reimagines modern sculpture as a welcoming and interactive environment.
- Relax at on-site facilities like the cafe and bar, enhancing your visit with comfort and convenience.
Australia’s most dramatic exhibition space is completely transformed, as artist Mike Hewson brings his unique and boundary-testing brand of social sculpture to the Nelson Packer Tank.
Renowned for award-winning public projects that are at once artworks, play areas, and places to be, Hewson has reimagined the Tank as a combined park, playground, construction site, and commons – an anarchic and generous sculptural neighbourhood where visitors can meet, dwell, play, make, perform, explore and more.
Free to all and made for all ages, this one-of-a-kind project was developed in the artist’s dynamic Sydney workshop and constructed from thousands of salvaged objects and materials. Hewson’s project is an experiment in participation, a spirited act of reclamation and regeneration, a radical rework of the legacies of modern sculpture, and a provocation about what a truly welcoming art museum might look like.
For Hewson, whose sculptural practice was catalysed by the experience of the Christchurch earthquakes, the artist is a host who welcomes guests to use the artwork as their own – ‘the key’s under the mat, make yourself at home’.
Images and Video
Dates & times
- Next occurrence: reoccurring
Accreditations
- Australian Tourism Export Council
Features
Tags
Actively welcomes people with access needs.
General access
- Offers multiple options for booking – web, email, phone is available.
- Offers a range of contact methods for receiving complaints.
- Companion Cards are accepted.
- Employs people with disabilities.
- Staff are trained in disability awareness.
- Accessibility information and photos, including of a bathroom, room and/or floor plan on their website (can be emailed on request).
Communication
Welcomes and assists people who have challenges with learning, communication, understanding and behaviour. (includes people with autism, intellectual disability, Down syndrome, acquired brain injury (ABI), dyslexia and dementia)
- Staff are trained in communicating with people with learning or behavioural challenges.
- Uses Plain English / easy read signage and information (includes menus and emergency information)
Physical – Mobility
Caters for people with sufficient mobility to climb a few steps but who would benefit from fixtures to aid balance. (This includes people using walking frames and mobility aids)
- Uses floors/coverings which are slip resistant, firm and smooth
- Uses non-slip tiles in the bathroom or slip resistant matting
- Grab rails in the bathroom
- Seating in common areas including reception area
Physical – Wheelchair
Caters for people who use a wheelchair.
- Step free outdoor pathways (includes picnic areas, barbecues and shelters)
- A step free main entrance to the building and/or reception area (includes ramps or slopes with a maximum gradient of 1:14, otherwise are too steep for wheelchairs)
- Step free access to restaurant, lounge and bar
- Step free access to the conference or function room
- Lifts with enough space for people using a mobility aid to enter and turn around to use the lift buttons. Buttons are at accessible height.
- An accessible public toilet which is unlocked.
- At least one wheelchair accessible parking space with wheelchair accessible signage clearly displayed (International standards are 3200mm wide x 2500 mm high).
- Wheelchair accessible transport options available in the general vicinity (provide information on name of the operator, phone and website link to individual providers for private vehicles, community transport train, mini vans, hire cars, buses, taxis, ferry, tram, light rail etc in their access statement).
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