The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Her Parts is a dedicated interactive space created by artist Sanné Mestrom at the National Gallery of Australia exhibited alongside the gallery's major exhibition Cézanne to Giacometti: Highlights from Museum Berggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie. Building on artistic dialogues initiated by the exhibition, Mestrom transforms abstract cubist forms into a playable adventure. Audiences are invited to immerse themselves in the geometry of Mestrom’s sculpture, touch bronze reliefs that blur the boundary between two and three-dimensional art making and challenge their perception of space through interactive drawing systems that invite new perspectives.

Through three major installations—’The Fractured Gaze,’ ‘Ludic Folly,’ and ‘The Weight of Connection’—visitors physically engage with recurring themes of Mestrom's practice including re-examining female representation; activating play in art spaces; the maternal experience and creating open-ended engagement. From hands-on drawing exercises exploring perspective systems to climbable sculptures transforming passive female forms into sites of active play, and tactile bronze reliefs that challenge the “look don’t touch” museum paradigm, each work democratises art historical knowledge while empowering participants to become co-creators in the experience. This project transforms canonical modernist works from fixed objects of contemplation into dynamic spaces for community engagement, critical discourse, and embodied learning.