The Living Room gallery provides space for children and families to view unique works of art, engage in hands-on expression, and learn about making art.  This special gallery at the Museum has been open since 2003 and has presented three hands-on exhibitions all dedicated to creating a fun and experimental relationship with art.
           
The current installation in The Living Room is titled interACTIVEand features the works of three Wichita artists, Chris Gulick, Tom McGuire, and Lee Shiney.  All three artists specialize in kinetic, or moving, art.  With moving and moveable art as its focus, direct physical activity is required to activate some of the pieces in interACTIVE.  Motion sensors and touch panels are a part of several artworks that can only turn, light up, or otherwise activate with direct human power.  Viewers must become participants in the creation or completion of the sculptures. 

Sculptures hung from the ceiling and walls allow visitors of all sizes to change their viewpoint in the gallery, looking up and walking around instead of the traditional head-on position.  interACTIVE makes viewers question the definition of sculpture.  No longer can it be seen as rigid and stuffy, but one capable of action and joyful motion. 

Inside the gallery is a “mobile-making station” with string, yarn, pipe cleaners, craft sticks, and other materials for families to make their own kinetic sculpture.  Also, smaller versions of the sculptures, such as shadow boxes, will be at kid-level and young visitors will be encouraged to arrange objects of their creation in the box to experiment with composition, perspective, and line; in effect re-creating the artwork themselves.