Featherweight acknowledges the
Traditional Owners of the lands
where we live and work across
Australia, and we pay our respects
to the First Nations Elders
past, present and emerging.
We are grateful for their continuing care
and custodianship of the
land, sea, community and culture.
Featherweight is a creative studio specialising in the creation and delivery of installations, 3D spaces and experiences for museums, exhibitions, brand installations and interpretative displays.
Storytelling is the heart of our practice.
About
The human need for connection, meaning and reflection informs Featherweight’s practice. Our approach to storytelling embraces the entire experience space – emotional, physical and digital – as an expanded canvas to unite content and audience in inventive ways.
Strong relationships with major Australian museums, next-generation multimedia experts, artists and fabricators underpin Featherweight’s work. With a deep practice in creative production and communication, we make informative, entertaining and eye-catching installations for our clients.
Services
Detailed content research
Curatorial development
Image and film research
Exhibition design + implementation
Writing + editing
Graphic design
Multimedia production
Featherweight recent and current work
Featherweight’s latest project 'The Assembly of Trees' was a collaboration with artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats to create an exhibition that explores concepts of democracy viewed through an ecological lens. This innovative project is part of the larger 'Broken' exhibition at MOD in Adelaide until end of 2024.
'The Assembly of Trees’ exhibition is designed as a dynamic space for engagement and polling. It features an expansive interactive display that visualises real-time polling data, complemented by a greenhouse laboratory that hosts a living tree - a nod to the potential future of tree voting.
In 2024 the Australian Opal Centre commissioned Featherweight to develop the Interpretation Plan and Content Brief for Stage 1 of the AOC's new offering.
Set against the starkly beautiful landscape of Yuwaalaraay country at Lightning Ridge, the AOC is poised to become a premier cultural and scientific institution in 2024.
Image: Opalised fossil mollusc, photograph by Robert A Smith.
This amazing nationally-significant museum, designed by acclaimed architect Wendy Lewin in association with Dunn + Hillam architects, based on an initial concept by Wendy Lewin and Glenn Murcutt, will be an energy-efficient, two storey underground building, filled with glittering treasures and stories of the people who found them.
Image Copyright DunnHillam Architects.
‘Opal carries mighty stories from deep time. It tells us about the evolution of plants and animals right across the southern hemisphere, about the inland sea and its margins 100 million years ago, and about the enormous intervals and processes between then and now.’
Dr Elizabeth Smith
Image: Macro photography of black opal, by Robert A Smith.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service asked Featherweight to create nine short films that take visitors on a journey through Cockle Creek on Darramuragal country in Ku-ring-gai National Park.
In the film featured here, connect with Country along the Gibberagong Track and witness Uncle Dean Kelly acknowledge Aboriginal people as the traditional custodians of the extraordinary landforms and waterways of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.
Through these films, we experience the timeless stories of nature, life, death and renewal that are deeply embedded within First Nations culture and the land itself. The films honour the living history of the land, and we give deep thanks to the team of First Nations people who generously shared their knowledge and wisdom with us in the making of these wondrous stories.
In the film featured here, connect with Country along the Gibberagong Track and witness Uncle Dean Kelly acknowledge Aboriginal people as the traditional custodians of the extraordinary landforms and waterways of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.
In 2021 Featherweight developed concept designs for an interactive early learners space at the National Maritime Museum of Australia, which explored the ocean floor as a playground.
Set inside a submarine wreck submerged at the bottom of the sea, plants and animals colonise the space, with whalebones fallen over to create a welcoming playground, celebrating both decay and growth.
In 2020 Featherweight collaborated with Code on Canvas to create complex narratives and content for a Multiplayer Virtual Reality experience for Jericho Disruptive Innovation.
In 2021 Featherweight designed interpretive content and graphics for the major survey show for artist Luke Sciberras at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.
In 2022, Featherweight completed the content, design and installation of an exhibition for the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, commemorating their history and work across Australia over the past 80 years.
The permanent exhibition in Western Sydney adheres to traditional museum design methods using images, artefacts and historic films from the FMM archive to appeal to client and visitor needs.
Georgina Hawke and Lindsay Toussaint bring over twenty years of collective exhibition design experience to their work with museums, corporations and cultural institutions.
Georgina Hawke
Georgina works across both curatorial and design disciplines to create engaging unique exhibitions and experiences. Her broad experience in the museum and cultural heritage sector has included a wide range of themes and museum collections, from aviation museums, maritime collections, religious institutions, First Nations collections and content, science and natural history collections and libraries.
Film, artefacts, imagery, sound, space are all tools to create experiences and exhibitions to engage the visitor. By using rigorous research and ideation methodologies, bold exhibition concepts are developed where traditional and rigid thematic boundaries are blurred to allow for unique non-linear links between technologies, stories & artefacts. These concepts underpin and strengthen the remaining design process and outcomes.
Georginas knowledge and extensive experience of museum projects includes managing budgets, schedules, conservation requirements, design and manufacture to ensure projects are delivered on time and within budget.
