"Bipotaim" exhibit for National Museum of Australia

Design for a permanent Museum exhibit for the National Museum of Australia, Canberra. Bipotaim: Stories from the Torres Strait is an exhibition of striking photographs, stories and objects about the lives, culture and identity of Torres Strait Islanders.

Bipotaim means ‘before time’ in Torres Strait Creole and refers in a general way to ‘olden times’.

People from islands across Australia’s northern frontier are depicted in David Callow’s portraits. They compare current and traditional ways and practises and reflect on changes that have occurred in the Torres Strait during their lives.

The photographs in Bipotaim are complemented by objects from the National Museum’s Torres Strait Islander collections.

I did the whole process in 3D so all stakeholders could easily visualize the proposals. Because all the display objects were modelled in 3D to scale, and placed in the accurate 3D virtual exhibit space we could be very confident that the final result would have no surprises. One of the very useful moments in this process came when early renders demonstrated strong reflections from a window on the display cases. I was able to include a window treatment in the final design to cut down the light entering, and to enhance the context of the display objects. The result was exactly as per the renders. It was easy to justify the cost of the window treatment to the museum by showing renders with and without the window treatment.