ACMI’s Melbourne-made Wonderland exhibition wins prestigious industry award

Wonderland, the interactive exhibition conceived and created in Melbourne by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), has just been awarded the 2019 GLAMi’s Best in Show award as well as the 2019 GLAMi Exhibition Media or Experience: Immersive Category award at the 23rd annual MuseWeb conference in Boston, US. Other institutions vying for the Exhibition Media or Experience: Immersive Category award included The Met for Visitors to Versailles and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights for Mandela: Struggle for Freedom.

Made in Melbourne by the team at ACMI, this wholly original exhibition brought the museum’s extensive creative and curatorial expertise together with a leading team of Australian collaborators. ACMI Xcel creative tech accelerator alum and Melbourne-based digital creative studio Sandpit, designed the interactive map that brought visitors’ exhibition experience to life and delivered take-home digital content. Sydney-based creatives Grumpy Sailor designed the standout 360-degree immersive Mad Hatter’s Tea Party experience using premium projectors and engineering advice from Panasonic. While Mosster Studio created The Queen’s Croquet Ground, a paper-to-digital play space that animated visitors’ handmade card soldiers on a giant screen.

“Congratulations to ACMI and the creative team behind this stunning homegrown exhibition. These awards recognise our incredible local creative talent and ACMI’s growing global reputation. We can expect even more world-leading exhibitions and experiences from ACMI when its forthcoming major redevelopment is complete,” said Minister for Creative Industries Martin Foley.

The MuseWeb conference convenes annually in North America and Asia, where experts discuss exemplary applications of digital practice across cultural, natural and scientific institutions. The GLAMi awards recognize the best in cultural innovation.

ACMI CEO & Director, Katrina Sedgwick said “With Wonderland, ACMI created an interactive exhibition where audiences could explore the magic of film craft through an internationally recognised screen heroine, Alice. I’m thrilled that the immersive power of Wonderland has been recognised by our global industry peers.”

ACMI’s Wonderland has just started its international tour, taking Melbourne-made cultural experiences to the world. Wonderland’s first stop is ArtScience Museum Singapore where it will open on 13 April. From the earliest optical toys to silent film, animation, puppetry, live-action cinema, videogames, CGI, 3D and beyond, Wonderland explores how the moving image has kept Alice and her stories in the public consciousness, reinvented in contemporary contexts and mediums.

In addition to Wonderland, ACMI’s homegrown exhibitions include DreamWorks Animation: The Exhibition, which was conceived together with DreamWorks Animation in Los Angeles. Currently on tour in Rio de Janeiro, it has been visited by half-a-million people and counting. Following its eight-country international tour, DreamWorks Animation will return to Australia on September 20, where it will open at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.