Under the banner ‘Kids Vs Art’, Tilly Coggan, Monty Hyles, Regan Manton and Alec Magnone hosted the city kids recently in Jugiong showing them typical activities from shearing to feeding a poddy calf. 

The kids were joined by lead artist Jackson Castiglione, who has been thoroughly inspired by the kids’ insight into all things art, agriculture and media. 

Rare is a time any adult can guess what will come out of the mouth of a child, however therein lies the beauty of the Kids Vs Art project. 

“Kids always surprise me; their ability to articulate is extraordinary,” Jackson said. 

All of the kids, city and country, have been interviewing artists for the podcast series and while their vocabulary can sometimes be simplified, Jackson said the concepts they recognise and ask questions are are amazing. 

“Some of the issues they tackle are highly provocative and insightful,” he said.

As well as delving into the life and times of artists, the process is helping bridge the gap between city and country kids. 

Episode one asks the kids what they expect from their counterparts with the city kids predicting the country kids eat koalas and other other strange foods, while the country kids were wary the city kids may be overly sensitive. 

On meeting eachother, these stereotypes were broken as they discovered they had more in common than they initially thought. 

The podcast series was commissioned by Melbourne Fringe and Arts House with the Riverina chosen for involvement via a connection to Sarah Last of Muttama’s Wired Lab. 

This Saturday, all of the kids will be at the Wired Open Day Festival, where they will conduct further interviews providing material for upcoming podcasts. 

The Wired Open Day Festival is an all-ages open-air event held from late afternoon into the evening celebrating landscape, community, art, theatre, an evening concert, fantastic food and beverages.

Find and listen to the podcast series at kidsvsart.com.