Our Approach
Our dedicated team of artists and creative technologists is committed to creating child-led engaging experiences. We use unusual interfaces, interactive sounds, soft textile sensors, and voice control to actively involve the audience and work closely with researchers at the Mixed Reality Lab, the University of Nottingham to harness cutting-edge technologies. We create touring installations and performances in-house as well as provide design services specially tailored to arts organisations that work with children, you can find out more below. Our installation spaces are multifunctional; they can be used for dance, puppetry, storytelling, and performances. We take one day to set up and recommend that the installation stays at a venue for at least one week. The Enchanted Forest installation, our first venture, ran at Theatre Hullabaloo, Darlington for 11 months and had over 17,000 visitors, and many were repeat visits.
Discover Our Work
Rising Spring – Awakenings and Arrivals, launched amid winter, is our new mini installation, opened in late January 2023; it takes the visitors on a journey through nature, experiencing interactive flowers that open when you wave to them, large-scaled strange flowers and music stepping stones.
Adventures in Nature, an outdoor installation, opened in 2022. It is part of a 3-year project exploring stories, music, and movement with Liz Clark, dancer and Artistic Director of Turned On Its Head, who specialises in making dance for 0-4-year-olds—the show tour at Hoopla Early Years festival in 2022.
HOME: Zero was commissioned by Nesta and National Gallery X (The National Gallery and King’s College London). First shown in May 2022, it is an interactive performance where visitors enter a fantastical world where time is limited.
‘Thingamabobas’ is a circus troupe of mechanical sculptures that respond to an audience's presence and movements. Opened at Lakeside Arts in May 2021. The touchless installation uses a novel blend of traditional crafts, sensing technologies, robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Supported by Arts Council England, Lakeside Arts, Mixed Reality Lab and Nottingham Library service.
Lakeside Arts and Makers of Imaginary Worlds have joined forces in making a truly unique interactive installation: Undiscovered Island. The Coral Garden, the inner dome, opened in Feb 2020 at St Ann's Library for the Nottingham Science and Curiosity Festival. Undiscovered Island opened in August 2021 and ran for three weeks. It is currently on tour.
A playful and fun interactive floor that appeals to children’s needs and instinctual behaviours to interact, touch and exert their agency. The interactive floor was experienced at Derby Quad 2019, Newstead Abbey 2019, Norwich Castle 2018,The Mighty Creatives, Creating the Future, Curve Theatre Foyer, Leicester 2019 and Lakeside Arts 2017.
Commissioned Projects 2017-19
Want to explore new experiences using the latest technologies? We can to design and build bespoke installations to engage your audiences.
Installation / commission
Deep Sea Adventure
Theatre Hullabaloo & Becci Sharrock, in association with Makers of Imaginary Worlds. Inspired by ideas from local children, Deep Sea Adventure is an interactive voyage of discovery with coral reefs to crawl over, mysterious caves to explore and paint fish which are not quite what they seem-18th Nov 2019 - 20th Mar 2020.
Installation / commission
The Enchanted Forest
The Enchanted Forest is an interactive installation for children 0-8 years and their grownups.It prioritises children’s engagement by weaving together children’s ideas with fairy folktales, myths and open source interactive technologies, to create a space for playful imaginings, interactions, performance and storytelling. Opened at Theatre Hullabaloo in Nov 2017.
Get in Touch
Interested in commissioning a design, hiring an installation or running workshops for an event? Contact us with any questions or queries and we will get back to you shortly.