Imaginator Brisbane

Overview

Sometimes, we all need to get a little lost. We need to leave our comfort zones and go wandering through an otherworldly realm, too. We need to explore light-filled mazes, bound through inflatable spaces and check out an electronic hall of mirrors, and just completely forget about our day-to-day troubles while we're moseying around a multi-sensory installation. And, we need the chance to do so for a few years.

If all of that sounds like your idea of heaven, it first became a reality in Brisbane at Brisbane Festival 2021, and hasn't left since. First called Imaginaria and now named Imaginator Brisbane, this is an immersive playground for kidults and children alike underneath the Goodwill Bridge, next to Queensland Maritime Museum at South Bank — and it currently has Wednesday, January 31, 2024 as its end date.

If it sounds a little familiar — and not just from being in the River City for a while now — that's because you might've heard about Imaginaria's Melbourne runs. When it set up shop in the Victorian capital for six months at the end of 2020, it welcomed in a lazy 100,000-plus people. And yes, its Brisbane stint has been busy.

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. Cue artificial intelligence projections, for starters, as well as LED waves set off by sensors. Fancy interacting with giant silk parachute canopies? That's also on the list, as are cosmic gardens and an anti-gravity sunset. Of course an installation like this has an electronic hall of mirrors — and there's also a digital wishing well to tell your biggest desires.

There's ten rooms in total, eight of which are brand new for Brisbane — and it's an all-ages, choose-your-own-adventure kind of experience, so you can spend 15 minutes skipping through or take your time.

Images: Annette Dew / William Hamilton-Coates. Updated Monday, December 18, 2023.