MENTAL Exhibition

Client: Science Gallery, Melbourne

Location: Science Gallery, Melbourne

Year: 2022

Brief: To design the opening exhibition for the new Science gallery at the University of Melbourne, bringing together art, science and technology through a series of visceral and interactive exhibitions exploring mental health. 

The scope of our work included transformation of a raw, 1000sqm industrial gallery space into a dynamic world, including 25 exhibits, digital installations and objects presented from a multitude of angles.

To support the need for non-prescriptive exploration, we created a curtain that would act as an overarching exhibition design tool and supporting central spine – physically representing a powerful metaphor by manifesting the boundary between the external and internal worlds.

This approach facilitated multiple entry points, viewpoints and perspectives on the different installations, while its versatility enables it to create a range of moods, atmospheres and physical zones, transforming the museum into a dynamic and energetic platform, fulfilling the expectations of today’s young-adult audience.

The exhibition design required the seamless incorporation of a wide variety of content, each with their own environmental requirements, and we adapted the core visual language of the curtain to support them, shielding some pieces and revealing others to create moments of drama and surprise.

For example – ‘Mirror Ritual’ by Nina Rajcic and Sensilab (an AI mirror that generates poetry based on your emotions) needed to be in a private space, to allow for a personal experience, so we created a fully curtained niche for it.

In contrast, ‘Thoughtforms’ by Kellyann Geurts and Indae Hwang – a museum of 3D printed feelings which are captured by wearing a headset and can be 3D printed in the gallery – was a key attraction and needed to stand out accordingly, so we created a structural framework outlining a separate room, its component parts providing the scaffolding from which to hang and display visitors labelled 3D-printed thoughtforms.