ACMI pushes boundaries of exhibition design with ‘The Future & Other Fictions’ via Art Processors
Australia’s national museum of screen culture ACMI has partnered with experience design agency Art Processors for its world-class exhibition The Future & Other Fictions.
The Future & Other Fictions is the first collaboration between the ACMI and Art Processors teams, where skilled Art Processors team members complemented the ACMI team to design and produce a visitor experience that pushes the boundaries of world-building. Drawing on aesthetics like cyberpunk and solarpunk, the exhibition boasts spaces that aren’t just visually stunning, but also provoke meaningful engagement with the work on display.
Through their expert exhibition and experience design, development and production services, the Art Processors team enabled ACMI to present an exhibition that will change the way visitors think about the future, showcasing the storytelling craft of leading creatives from film, videogames and screen-based art.
Tara McDonough, Exhibition Design Director at Art Processors, said, “Featuring more than 180 works, The Future & Other Fictions showcases speculative visions of the future from cyberpunk cities to rewilded landscapes and solarpunk utopias. At the heart of the exhibition is the visitor, with a thoughtfully choreographed journey that enhances the emotional and intellectual connection with the artworks, props, costumes and film clips on display.”
“Every design choice was made with the visitor in mind. We have crafted an experience where they can step into a story where they’re not just a spectator, but part of the narrative. The exhibition has a cinematic quality, inviting visitors to interact, reflect, and even shape their own vision for the future in small but meaningful ways.”
Seb Chan, ACMI Director & CEO, said, “The Future & Other Fictions is an expansive mix of physical objects – intricate costumes, delicate props, digital and interactive media and large scale screen-based art – about complex and contested subject matter: our future. The Art Processors team have skillfully delivered a vibrant and bold exhibition design, creating a captivating and coherent visitor experience full of hope, colour, optimism and potential that has wide appeal across ages and cultural backgrounds.”
Art Processors, part of the Moorilla Group which includes the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, is known for creating innovative cultural destinations around the world. It approaches experience design by deeply understanding the visitor experience—their needs, motivations, behaviours, and challenges—and strategically using design elements to elicit an emotional connection and immerse the audience in narratives.
“Our challenge was to design a space that explores imagined futures through the journey of the creative process. We aimed to showcase a diverse range of themes and perspectives, and also offer a cohesive, digestible journey for visitors to engage with, and, hopefully, reflect on after leaving. To achieve this we worked closely with ACMI, combining their expertise in content curation, with Art Processors’ design, technology and experiential knowledge to craft a singular, novel experience that still celebrated ACMI’s distinct flavour,” commented Vanda Nemeth, Exhibition Designer, Art Processors. “The result is a vibrant space, with each turn revealing something unique.”
The Future & Other Fictions celebrates screen culture’s role in shaping a more optimistic world, and is running from 28 November 2024 to 27 April 2025 at Melbourne’s ACMI in Gallery 4.