Swinburne Studio: ACMI's brand new home for sharing ideas marks expansion of major academic partnership

Swinburne University of Technology has extended its partnership with ACMI –Australia’s national museum of screen culture — announcing a new multi-purpose function space at the reimagined museum, with naming rights for the next 10 years.

Swinburne has been ACMI’s Major Academic Partner since 2019. Together, the two institutions are bringing people and technology together to provide study opportunities, bring transformative research to industry and advance screen culture. 

Swinburne Studio will provide a dedicated area for programming collaborations between the two organisations, plus a home for ACMI’s many diverse festivals and events.

ACMI and Swinburne will host a suite of free public events in the space later this year, showcasing their shared expertise in technology, innovation, digital culture and screen industries. 

The announcement follows ACMI’s reopening last month, after a major $40 million redevelopment.

ACMI Director and CEO Katrina Sedgwick OAM said: “Swinburne shares our values of collaboration, experimentation and innovation, and our revitalised museum experience is all the richer for it – helping us to inspire and nurture the next generation of moving image makers, watchers and players.”

Swinburne University of Technology Vice-Chancellor Professor Pascale Quester said: “We are excited to work with ACMI and build new technology-driven opportunities for our students and researchers. At Swinburne, we bring people and technology together to create a better world and, through this partnership, we look forward to our students experiencing exciting placements at ACMI and our experts delivering projects for the screen culture industry.”

As part of ACMI’s redevelopment, Swinburne’s Centre for Design Innovation was appointed to research, develop, and oversee production and manufacturing of the Lens – a free, take-home device enabling people to tap and collect anything they see at ACMI to explore more deeply after their visit. It’s an experience that goes beyond the physical and into the digital, conceived by ACMI and designed by Razorfish. With a focus on sustainability, the final design is recyclable and ecologically low-impact.

The Lens activates the Constellation, a large-scale experience at the end of ACMI’s centrepiece exhibition The Story of the Moving Image. It takes items collected by visitors and connects them to hundreds of other films, TV series, artworks and videogames beyond the scope of the gallery. Swinburne’s cinema and screen studies students have created narratives for the Constellation, and continue to do so ongoing.

ACMI and Swinburne are currently partnered on two Australian Research Council projects with additional research projects in development. Topics include gender diversity in screen culture, preservation of Australian videogames and archiving media. Additionally, Swinburne students are offered internship opportunities at ACMI across branding, exhibition design, digital content and programming. 

ACMI reopened in Melbourne's Fed Square in February 2021 after a two-year architectural, programmatic and technological transformation. 

Swinburne Studio is available to hire as an event space, with food and beverage offerings from celebrated chef Karen Martini who heads up ACMI’s reimagined dining experience, Hero.