Bugs Are Us at Tate Liverpool

This October half term get ready to do something slightly different – Tate Liverpool is rolling out the red carpet for… insects. Yes, really. Enjoy a wonderful family activity in the brand-new Learning Space at Tate Liverpool, where the stars of the show are dragonflies, beetles, spiders etc.

Inspired by the creepy-crawlies by Louise Bourgeois to Andy Warhol from Tate’s collection, children can raid the pick ’n’ mix craft box, thankfully filled with recycled materials rather than fizzy cola bottles, to build multi-coloured neon 3D bugs that are worthy of their own museum. Get creative, let loose and have some fun – and if your child’s spider looks more like a potato with legs, don’t panic – great art really is sometimes just a matter of confidence and perspective!

The Learning Space, open daily and free to enter, isn’t just about glue guns and googly eyes. It’s a place to flop on cushions, play art-inspired game, or escape the cold with colouring books.

The fun doesn’t end when the insects are packed away. As we move into Winter, birds will be the main theme, with partridges, turtle doves, even a Shrigley-inspired pigeon if your imagination can go that far.

So whether you and your little ones leave with a beetle, a butterfly, a potato with legs or just glitter in your hair, hopefully you will have unleashed some of that inner creativity just desperate to come out! And you’ll have survived another afternoon without resorting to a screen, which really is quite miraculous.