Creative Acts

Creative Acts was the largest exhibition SLV has held, bringing together hundreds of objects spanning diverse practices, periods, and places. The experience design spanned concept to opening: developing the visitor journey, writing briefs for 2D design, 3D design, sound, and commissioned works, and steering external designers and artists through to delivery.

The central design challenge was how to reflect an ambitious curatorial vision without imposing hierarchy on it. Together with the curators, a wunderkammer approach was developed that resists linear movement, positioning objects high and low to create depth and reward exploration. The show was designed so that returning visitors would find things they missed the first time, and repeat visitation on a free exhibition suggests that worked.

Sound was a major design investment. Working with Byron Scullin of Fuligin Sounds, the brief called for a 16-channel spatial soundscape featuring five Melbourne electronic artists, each contributing generative tracks that evolve continuously and never repeat. A MIDI controller interactive lets visitors step in as makers, mixing the live stems themselves, so the exhibition's question about creativity became something they answered with their hands.

Large-scale commissions included works by Bundit Puangthong, Barry Hale, and Deanne Gilson, whose spirit tree anchors the centre of the gallery, alongside commissioned video works by Yeoseop Yoon woven throughout the space.