Designed Connection
Reflections beyond the 2026 Interpretation Australia Conference, by INNZ Committee Member Jess Gommers
Antarctica exhibition detail, National Museum of Australia
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
While attending this year's Interpretation Australia conference at the National Museum of Australia (NMA), on the lands of the Ngunnawal, Ngunawai and Ngambri peoples, I found myself thinking beyond the conference sessions. The event explored how interpretation, design and environmental psychology shape the way people engage with places, stories and one another. As I spent time in Canberra, I began noticing those same ideas playing out everywhere around me.
From exhibition spaces to public buildings and the city itself, design appeared to operate at every scale. Sometimes obvious, sometimes almost invisible, it guided movement, encouraged engagement and strengthened connections between people, place and content.
Design at a civic scale
Canberra is an impeccably considered, well-designed and remarkably tidy city. Planned by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, its design reflects an ambitious vision shaped by both landscape and geometry. Their winning proposal was submitted under Walter's name in 1912.
As one of the world's first licensed female architects, Marion's remarkable presentation drawings are credited with helping secure the competition win, and she is now widely recognised as a vital creative force behind the design. At a time when women were actively discouraged from entering the profession, her influence was extraordinary.
Designed in response to the existing landscape, Canberra is anchored by intersecting land and water axes. "It has been said that, of all designs submitted in the competition, only Griffin's plan showed an artistic grasp of town planning. It was a simple but splendid concept, laid out in an attractive geometric pattern intricately developed from the topography of the valley."
Marion Mahony Griffin, Section C-D Easterly Side of Land Axis: Ainslee to Red Hill, 1912 (detail).
Collection of National Archives of Australia: A710,45
Mid‑century monumentality
A visit to the National Triangle revealed grand civic spaces and wide lakeside boulevards full of people and beauty. I will admit I arrived in Canberra without having done much homework, so the city's mid-century and brutalist architecture came as a complete surprise. It absolutely blew me away. Modest and monumental, with high-spec concrete, glass and timber detailing, “bush-hammered concrete surfaces surrounded by gardens”, these structures alone were breathtaking.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Galleries and initiatives
I was equally impressed by the content and design within the National Gallery of Australia and National Portrait Gallery displays.
Particularly impactful for me was discovering the Know My Name initiative – a national program of exhibitions, commissions, education programs, partnerships and creative collaborations that celebrates the diversity and creativity of Australian women artists throughout history and to the present day.
Know My Name is an invitation to the Australian cultural sector (and to communities more broadly) to recognise and highlight the work of women across diverse creative practices. Well-designed and clearly communicated online and in printed form, its ambitions and guiding principles are crystal clear.
Ideas in action
On my way back to Auckland, I stopped in Melbourne and visited Our Wondrous Planet – a thoughtfully designed immersive exhibition experience. With complex and simple design tricks employed at just the right tempo, place, scale and volume, the intention remains clear. The Museum's collection is prioritised and supported by beautifully typeset, structured and accessible information. Colour, texture, subtle movement and sound entice, direct and encourage engagement without overwhelming.
Our Wondrous Planet exhibition detail, Melbourne Museum
Reverb: This is a journey into sound exhibition detail, ACMI, Melbourne
Exhibition design was equally prominent at both ACMI and the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) sites too. The spatial, sound and lighting design within Reverb: This is a journey into sound and Feng Mengbo: Long March Restart at ACMI invited audiences to slow down and engage with content in new ways.
At NGV International, the Cartier exhibition was stunning. Personally, I am not into fine jewellery or ostentatious wealth, but I had caught up with a dear friend who said, “forget the content, the exhibition design is the must-see,” and she was right. The collaboration for this exhibition spans multiple continents and contributors and the NGV promotes the exhibition design as much as they promote the exhibition content. I find this both fascinating and valid – the exhibition design is exquisite.
“The exhibition design connects jewellery and design to matter and light, object and architecture, culture and history”. On the Sunday I visited, every gallery was full. People crowded around cases, lingered in front of films and moved slowly from space to space. They were there for different reasons, no doubt, but we were all engaged. For me, that's what successful interpretation looks like.
Design is a guide that helps connect visitors to place; to story; to content. It doesn’t need to shout, it may not always be credited or visible but in the creation of projects, experiences and destinations there is an interdependence; a symbiotic relationship between context, content and design. And once you see it, it can’t be unseen.
Cartier exhibition detail, NGV International
