Whether costumes, props or other odd trinkets, most performing arts venues with any amount of history to their name will have a collection of items they may or may not have room to display. Having opened in 1984 and also making a concerted effort to curate a diverse collection of items as part of the Australian Performing Arts Collection, it would be pretty exciting to get to get a glimpse at Arts Centre Melbourne’s collection, right?
In an announcement made earlier today, Arts Centre Melbourne has confirmed that “historically significant performing arts costumes and objects, ranging from Kylie Minogue’s gold lame hotpants to Dame Nellie Melba’s La Traviata bodice” will be made available for public viewing next year, as part of a $2.2 Million project to upgrade and expand their Australian Performing Arts Collection (APAC).
Unveiled today by the Minister for Creative Industries Steve Dimopoulos, MP, the Collections’ Reveal project will provide public access to some never-before-seen objects and costumes through what is pitched as “a first of its kind behind-the-scenes visitor experience”.
The new space designed by Melbourne-based Williams Ross Architects is set to open in June 2023 and will feature an upgraded and expanded storage to increase capacity for the Collection’s more than 780,000 items, ranging from costumes and accessories, designs and set models, props, photographs and scrap books, posters, programs, archives and audio and visual material. It will feature the Collection’s first ever conservation lab to preserve items onsite, and an enhanced photographic studio to continue digitisation and build on the development of online exhibitions.
Funded by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and philanthropists Virginia and Harry Boon and Maxwell and Merle Carroll Bequest, a key part of the design is an internal street allowing visitors to see curators, conservators, registrars, research, and exhibitions teams working on the collection, as well as objects and costumes in built-in display cases and 2D works on the wall. The intention is not to mimic or replace a gallery environment, but to provide ‘windows’ into what it takes to develop, manage, preserve, and share a State Collection.
The Australian Performing Arts Collection (APAC) was established in 1975, and is pitched as the nation’s largest collection of performing arts history and traditions. The collection acquires performing arts material across the five key collecting areas of circus, dance, music, opera, and theatre. APAC Reveal will remain a permanent offer at Arts Centre Melbourne. The Reimagining Arts Centre Melbourne project, part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation. includes the Centre for Creativity at 1 City Rd. This centre will feature an Australian Performing Arts Gallery to display the Australian Performing Arts Collection and an expanded permanent home for the Australian Music Vault.
Some items of significance in the collection, include:
- Kylie Minogue costumes designed by Dolce and Gabbana from her Aphrodite Les Folies tour, 2011
- Tutu worn by Justine Summers in Divergence, The Australian Ballet, 1994
- Bodice worn by Dame Nellie Melba as Violetta in La Traviata, c.1908
- Wirth’s Circus scrapbook compiled by Charles West, c.1905 – 1940s
- Notebooks compiled by Nick Cave
- Set model designed by Tony Tripp for Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Melbourne Theatre Company, 1995
- Ossie Ostrich puppet from television program Hey Hey It’s Saturday, c1972
- Costume designs by Roger Kirk for the role of Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz
- Spectacles worn with the Fish Dress by Barry Humphries as Edna Everage
