EXHIBITION
ENCORE!
2026
VENUE
Australian Museum for Performing Arts
YEAR
Studio Peter King was engaged by AMPA to design ENCORE! 50 Objects. 50 Years. One Collection. the museum's second major exhibition, marking five decades of the Australian Performing Arts Collection, the largest of its kind in the country.
Spanning 170 years of opera, ballet, theatre, circus, dance, music and popular entertainment, the exhibition brings together objects that range in scale from full stage set pieces to intimate personal keepsakes. The design responded to the exhibition's curatorial themes, staging each chapter as its own act, with changes in colour, light and form marking the transition from one scene to the next.
The journey opens with 'Time and Place', where an 1870s clock saved from the now-demolished Theatre Royal sits within an illuminated spiral of chrome pilasters, its beat framing a timeline of the collection's five decades. In 'International Icons', a long corridor with a mirrored gold floor and sequined gold curtains frames views of costumes worn by Australians who performed on the world stage, including Kylie Minogue's gold hot pants from Spinning Around and costumes connected to Olivia Newton-John and Hugh Jackman.
Further highlights include the neon-red L'Amour sign by Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin for Opera Australia's La Bohème, Rob Hirst's drum kit, Archie Roach's Sidney Myer Music Bowl vest, and the set model of the Carlton terrace from Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.
Moving from sketch to spectacle, the exhibition reveals the craft and process behind Australia's most memorable moments on stage, with many objects on public display for the first time.
Client: AMPA | Arts Centre Melbourne
Curatorial team: Sandra Bruce, Ian Jackson, Margaret Marshall, Margot Anderson
Exhibition Design: Studio Peter King in collaboration with Jenny Kan
Graphic Design: Steph Yap Design
Lighting & Multimedia design: Arts Centre Melbourne
Build: PropArt
Graphics: Decently Exposed, ImageBox, NextState
Curtains: Theatre Star
Flooring: C4
Photography: Eugene Hyland courtesy of AMPA
“But it is Minogue’s hot pants, nestled behind a shimmering gold curtain within the Australian Museum of Performing Arts, that drew the most attention.
The teeny-weeny gold ruched hot pants worn in her Spinning Around music clip and bought at a UK op shop for just 50 pence, perch on the positively perky made to measure sized mannequin…
In a case of beautiful synchronicity, the exhibition celebrating all things Australian – there really is something for everything with even Hey Hey’s Ozzy Ostrich on full display – opening in the week leading up to Minogue’s biggest Australian performance in decades.”