Collect your boarding pass and embark on a journey to explore the powerful stories of those who travelled and worked onboard the legendary ship.

This is the only exhibition in Australia to feature more than 200 real artefacts, recovered directly from the wreck site. Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition focuses on the voyage’s compelling human stories, taking visitors on a memorable journey through the events of that fateful night.

Set foot on full-scale replicas of some of the Titanic’s most iconic spaces and places, including the grand staircase.

Learn about the ship’s innovative engineering, touch an iceberg that is the same temperature as the freezing waters of the North Atlantic Ocean that night, and experience life onboard through full-scale recreations of the ship’s interiors – including the iconic Grand Staircase.

After a smash-hit reception in Paris and the USA, Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition arrives in Melbourne this summer and is an experience not to be missed.

Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition
18 December 2023 – 14 April 2024
Melbourne Museum, Melbourne
www.museumsvictoria.com.au

David Bowie is was created by the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London drawing upon unprecedented access to the David Bowie Archive of costumes, objects, album artwork, and memorabilia. The exhibition includes lyric sheets, hundreds of photographs, stage sets, rare videos, filmed live shows, over 50 costumes and interviews with key collaborators.

Special displays within the exhibition explore Bowie’s influences as musician, stage performer, writer and actor – and his continuing legacy. At its world premiere in London in March 2013, it was the V&A’s fastest selling exhibition and became one of its most popular shows, drawing over 311,000 visitors and widespread critical acclaim.

ACMI Director & CEO, Tony Sweeney, said the landmark exhibition showcases Bowie as a true innovator in music, fashion and culture, and traces his changing style and reinvention.

“The mystery of David Bowie as an enigma is so lovingly explored in this incredible immersive exhibition you’ll feel as if you’ve stepped inside the mind of this astonishing cultural and pop icon,” Tony said. “Bowie is a figure whose social and creative influence and significance far exceeds his status as a pre-eminent rock performer and in David Bowie is, his incredible career is showcased in glorious detail.”

The V&A’s curators, Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh, from the Museum’s Department of Theatre and Performance, selected more than 300 objects and films for the show. Of the exhibition they said:

“The exhibition looks in-depth at how Bowie’s music and radical individualism has both influenced and been influenced by wider movements in art, design, film and contemporary popular culture over an incredible 50-year career and demonstrates how Bowie has inspired others to challenge convention and pursue freedom of expression.”

Bowie’s first major hit Space Oddity (1969) and the introduction of his first fictionalised stage persona Major Tom, inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, granted him critical and commercial success as an established solo artist. His cinematic influences abound with his elaborate storyboards and set design for the Diamond Dogs tour (1974) – originally envisioned as a musical – inspired by Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis (1927), leading him to take the combination of rock music and theatre to new heights.

Excerpts and props from Bowie’s own work in feature films such as Labyrinth (1986) and Basquiat (1996) are displayed in the exhibition, as do many of his ambitious and ground-breaking music videos. The year 1972 marked the birth of his most famous creation; Ziggy Stardust, a daringly androgynous and otherworldly being. A pivotal performance of Starman on Top of the Pops in a multi-coloured suit signalled a challenge of social conventions, daring fans to shape their own identities.

Bowie’s collaborations with artists and designers in the fields of fashion, sound, graphics, theatre, art and film are explored throughout the exhibition. On display are more than 50 stage costumes including Ziggy Stardust bodysuits (1972) designed by Freddie Burretti, Kansai Yamamoto’s flamboyant creations for the Aladdin Sane tour (1973) and the Union Jack coat designed by Bowie and Alexander McQueen for the Earthling album cover (1997).

Bowie’s fruitful experimental period in Berlin between 1977 and 1979 is also explored through a series of pioneering records he produced known as the Berlin Trilogy, including the creation of the stylish Thin White Duke persona identified with the Station to Station album and tour (1976).

More personal items such as never-before-seen storyboards, handwritten set lists and lyrics are also featured in the exhibition as well as some of Bowie’s own sketches, musical scores and diary entries, revealing the evolution of his creative ideas.

ACMI is the exclusive Australasian venue for David Bowie is. The ACMI season will include a specially curated program of talks and special events, late night programs, film screenings and live performances.

“The sheer grandure brought tears to my eyes” – The Daily Telegraph

“Absolutely incredible… fabulous” – Jean Paul Gaultier

“A simple endorsement of pure stardom” – The Independent

David Bowie is
16 July – 1 November 2015
Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne
www.acmi.net.au/exhibitions/bowie

Recollect: Shoes will provide a unique visual insight into footwear history and fashions. It will illustrate how our attitudes towards design and ‘comfort’ have changed or, perhaps, remained entirely the same, as well as the impact of new materials and techniques on shoemaking methods.

Highlights of the display include historic shoes from the internationally significant Joseph Box collection. Joseph Box Ltd (today owned by John Lobb Bootmaker Ltd) was a London based shoe company which had its origins in a business making women’s shoes founded by James Sly in 1808. The collection includes remnants of leather shoes from the Middle Ages, excavated from British archaeological sites, intact European shoes from the 1600s to the early 1900s, ethnographic shoes, shoe buckles, tools and spurs, as well as an extensive company archive.

Visitors will be dazzled by a range of men’s and women’s shoes made or worn by celebrity names, such as Vivienne Westwood’s ‘Super Elevated Gillies’, Marc Newson’s cosmonaut-inspired sneakers for Nike, a pair of Charles Jourdan heels worn by Nicole Kidman in the film Moulin Rouge and a pair of cricket boots signed by Sir Donald Bradman. Also on show will be an extensive collection of designer high heels, wedges and boots owned and worn by costume designer and film producer Catherine Martin.

The display would not be complete without a range of shoemaking equipment, including an early 20th century clicking press, shoe lasts and patterns to demonstrate the process of making bespoke (made-to-measure) shoes, in addition to a collection of recent acquisitions, fashion photographs and a section about caring for shoes.

Recollect: Shoes Exhibition
29th November 2014 – May 2015
Powerhouse Museum Sydney
www.powerhousemuseum.com

This exhibition will take visitors behind the scenes to gain a glimpse into Hollywood of the 1920s to 1960s through a collection of costumes, props and ephemera connected to the cinema’s most iconic stars, studios and designers. This extraordinary exhibition is drawn from a sole private collection owned by Brisbane resident Nicholas Inglis who has been avidly acquiring motion picture costumes and memorabilia for close to two decades.

It will feature costumes worn by some of Hollywood’s most famous and enduring stars including Julie Andrews, Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, Judy Garland, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner and Barbra Streisand, alongside names that have faded from celluloid memory.

Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood will be shown exclusively in Brisbane, with all of the costumes exhibited in Australia for the very first time.

Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood
22 Nov 2014 — 24 May 2015
10am – 5pm daily
Gallery 2 & The Clem Jones Gallery
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au