An art installation produced by hundreds of the region's primary school students, A City for Kids is on display at Orange Regional Gallery.
The exhibition was created through the annual SPARKE project, an art-making and environmental education program developed by Orange Regional Gallery and Orange Regional Museum in conjunction with the SPARKE network of public primary schools.
The children were asked to imagine what a city for kids would be like and build it in their classrooms using recycled materials and their wildest imaginations. The city parts were then delivered to the Gallery and installed together to form the large-scale collaborative installation.
A CITY FOR KIDS: A city designed by kids, for kids is on display at Orange Regional Gallery.
The finished product is a colourful celebration of childhood creativity complete with sporting precincts, lolly shops, fast food restaurants and pet shops.
Orange City Council's Services Policy Committee Chair, Cr Mel McDonell said 15 schools took part in the project.
"This exhibition provides a fantastic insight into what's important to local children and helps us discover what a city for kids, created by kids, looks like," Cr McDonell said.
"This huge work shows there's no limit to what can be achieved when schools cooperate with each other on projects and the SPARKE network is such a great example of this collaboration."
This is the third year of the SPARKE project, which studied biodiversity and the work of pollinators in 2021 and bushfire regeneration in 2020.
A City for Kids is already open to the public and will be officially opened at Orange Regional Gallery on Friday 8 July, in conjunction with the opening of the new exhibition Catherine O'Donnell: Beyond the Shadow. The installation will be on display until Sunday 14 August.
Everyone is welcome to attend the free event. Tickets are available from Eventbrite.
Schools involved in the project are: Orange Public School, Glenroi Heights Public School, Calare Public School, Bletchington Public School, Molong Central School, Millthorpe Public School, Blayney Public School, Anson Street School, Bowen Public School, Borenore Public School,
Clergate Public School, Mullion Creek Public School, Spring Terrace Public School, Stuart Town Public School and Nashdale Public School.
