Multi-Sensory Playground 'Imaginaria' Is Keeping Its Immersive Installations in Brisbane Until 2023

From boats filled with luminous inflatable sculptures to Vincent van Gogh-inspired sunflower rooms — and including digital recreations of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel artworks and extremely photogenic dessert-themed pop-ups, too — it's been a huge year for immersive art installations in Brisbane. One of the big highlights: multi-sensory playground Imaginaria, which brought its light-filled mazes, inflatable spaces, electronic hall of mirrors and more to town in September 2021 for Brisbane Festival. Unsurprisingly proving popular, the otherworldly event is now sticking around until 2023.

Imaginaria has extended its Brisbane stay multiple times since initially popping up, and now it's committing in a big way, with tickets on sale until Sunday, January 29, 2023. If you haven't already bounced by, that gives you almost a year to make a date. If you've been, seen and loved it, you have that amount of time to revisit.

Set up underneath the Goodwill Bridge next to Queensland Maritime Museum at South Bank, the installation is made up of different structures, each filled with lights, sounds and smells. First, you take your shoes off — and then you wander through a space filled with artificial intelligence projections, sensor-triggered LED waves and giant silk parachute canopies.

Also included: cosmic gardens, an anti-gravity sunset, an electronic hall of mirrors and a digital wishing well that whispers your greatest desires.

Entering a serene white bubble, touching a digital eclipse, engaging with an interactive constellation — they're all featured, in an event that was always going to prove popular in Brisbane. When Imaginaria first set up in Melbourne before making its way north, more than 100,000 people went along.

Open for patrons to wander through at their own pace, and filled with chairs and lounges so you can stop wherever you want to linger, Imaginaria spans ten rooms in total — and the choose-your-own-adventure setup means you can spend 15 minutes skipping through or take your time.

An all-ages-friendly event, it still has capacity limits and strict hygiene measures — and tickets start at $29.95 a pop for adults.

Imaginaria will remain underneath the Goodwill Bridge, next to Queensland Maritime Museum at South Bank, until Sunday, January 29, 2023 — with tickets on sale now for all dates until then.

Top images: Annette Dew / William Hamilton-Coates