AN immersive exhibition exploring the growing modern-day struggles of burnout, identity, pressure and the quiet strength it takes to keep going opens at Dudley House next Thursday.<\/p>\n
Running on Empty \u2013 The Power of Play, the brainchild of local emerging artist Amanda Ninnis, invites visitors to pause, reflect and move through the contrasting spaces of exhaustion and empowerment, heaviness and light.<\/p>\n
The first part of the exhibition holds space for recognition, asking the audience to sit with the quiet weight of these expectations.<\/p>\n
The second part shifts, where through colour, expression and play, the works explore what it means to grow within these structures, reclaiming creativity, agency and possibility.<\/p>\n
Each room forms part of an emotional journey that is personal, reflective and deeply relatable.<\/p>\n
Intriguingly, a recurring visual reference within the exhibition is the flamingo \u2013 a bird that loses its colour after raising its young and can take time to regain it.<\/p>\n
This functions as a metaphor for depletion without failure, and for recovery as a gradual, biological process rather than an immediate fix.<\/p>\n
Ninnis, a mother of two, said the idea for the exhibition stemmed from conversations she’d had with many people regarding their “sense of tiredness and feeling like they’re behind”.<\/p>\n
“It got me thinking that there seems to be more than just a few people experiencing it,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I started questioning, what’s actually happening here?<\/p>\n
“Is it a generational thing?<\/p>\n
“Is it an economic thing or is it a gender thing happening?<\/p>\n
“That got me looking at the bigger structures that form our lives.”<\/p>\n
Ninnis explained more about the competing angle within the theme, where the concept of the power of play comes in.<\/p>\n
“One of the reasons I started to become curious about it was because I wanted to help people, but I didn’t really know how,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I realised that the way to help people is by creating space for them to breathe and relax \u2013 and that happens through play.<\/p>\n
“When you look at our social structures that we’ve grown up with, laziness has been frowned upon, so we don’t have that time to just be.<\/p>\n
“Play is a way to invite people back into that and not see it as a luxury, but as actually a place for restoration for the body and for the nervous system to reset by creating that space to breathe.”<\/p>\n
Running on Empty \u2013 The Power of Play runs from Thursday 23 April to Sunday 3 May at Dudley House in View Street.<\/p>\n
The opening hours at Dudley House are Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 4pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AN immersive exhibition exploring the growing modern-day struggles of burnout, identity, pressure and the quiet strength it takes to keep going opens at Dudley House next Thursday. Running on Empty \u2013 The Power of Play, the brainchild of local emerging artist Amanda Ninnis, invites visitors to pause, reflect and move through the contrasting spaces of […]<\/p>\n