World Premiere: The Sun and the Moon are Dancing. Lights Up - Jindera Lantern Walk
Jindera Pioneer Museum presents the world premiere of The Sun and the Moon are Dancing, an immersive inflatable garden of colour, pattern and light by acclaimed Australian artist Matthew Aberline and The Beautiful and Useful Studio.
The Sun and the Moon Dancing will be on exhibition at the Jindera Pioneer Museum from Saturday August 1 until Sunday August 9.
The grand opening night will be Saturday August 1 as part of the Jindera Lantern Walk which commences at the Village Green at 6pm. The opening night preview will be free of charge to those who register and attend the Jindera Lantern Walk. Registrations are essential. After the opening preview, T
The Sun and the Moon Dancing can be viewed as follows:
Sunday August 2 - through to Sunday August 9 | Daylight - 10am - 3pm | Twilight/Evening - 5pm - 7pm
Entry Fees
Daylight viewing visitors will be charged normal museum entry fees and can also experience the entire museum:
$15 adult
$10 concession
$5 children
$35 family
Twilight viewing between 5pm - 7pm the following entry fees apply, visitors can view selected other parts of museum:
$10 adult
$5 children
$25 family
The installation debuts at the museum's annual Lantern Walk, Saturday August 1 — a rare coup for the region, and a first for the Greater Hume Shire.
By day, the work is a bold sculptural landscape of printed textile and geometric pattern. By dusk, it glows from within, becoming a luminous destination among Jindera's historic buildings and gardens. "Nothing like this has ever been experienced in the Greater Hume Shire before," says museum president Margie Wehner. "As daylight fades, these sculptural forms will begin to glow among our historic buildings and gardens — a new layer of colour and quiet wonder in a place already rich with stories."
A new finale for an old tradition
The Lantern Walk draws on Laternelaufen, the German tradition of children carrying handmade lanterns through their village at dusk. It traces back to St Martin of Tours, the Roman soldier who cut his cloak in half to share with a freezing stranger — a small act of kindness that still echoes.
In Jindera, families walk Urana Street together each year, lanterns lit, singing as they go. This year, the walk builds to something new: participants will arrive at The Sun and the Moon are Dancing and add their own lanterns to the installation, joining their small lights to the larger glowing garden.
​
About the artist
Matthew Aberline is a Sydney-based artist and creative director working across inflatables, textiles, light and performance. His participatory public artworks have appeared at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, in community-led projects with the Art Gallery of NSW, and in partnerships with First Nations artists and regional communities across Australia.
"With generations of my family's connection to the area, I'm very excited to bring a new work to Jindera," Aberline says. "This project celebrates kindness, joy, family and friends making things together — the simple pleasure of gathering around something big, gorgeous and colourful.
"It's called The Sun and the Moon are Dancing because it's about the relationship between work and play, the real and the imaginary, what we make alone and what we make together. It's all part of a gorgeous dance — one that reconnects us to the little voice inside that says 'wow.'"
What's next for the museum
The installation arrives as Jindera Pioneer Museum prepares for a major building expansion, starting later this year. The new space will bring contemporary exhibitions, creative programs and a broader calendar of community events — while holding onto the stories and values that built the museum.
The Sun and the Moon are Dancing is an early signal of that shift: a museum becoming more dynamic and current, without losing its heritage.
​