Museum of Desire Celebrates One Year of Seducing, Surprising & Shaking Up Melbourne’s Arts Scene.
It is one year since the Museum of Desire threw open its doors and invited Melbourne to explore the art of love, lust, intimacy and play. Since launching in December 2024, more than 50,000 visitors have moved through the Museum’s immersive rooms, interactive installations and cheeky provocations—cementing it as one of Melbourne’s most original cultural experiences.
To celebrate this special occasion Museum of Desire will host a special celebration of performance, art, sensual mischief and after-dark delights, on Fri 5th & Sat 6th Dec for all sessions from 6pm–11PM, featuring the wild and wonderful work of Pony Dog Productions; Tattletales, and Cast My Body, plus extra birthday inclusions.
TattleTales: Immersive Tarot Storytelling (Smut Edition)
Venture into an enchanting den of tantalising tales, secrets and sorcery, and indulge in an interactive and introvert-friendly romantasy adventure. Part campfire-style storytelling, part choose-your-own-adventure, you will have the chance to wield Tarot cards, shape your destiny, and help craft a deliciously silly and sensual smut. Improvised every show, no two stories will ever be the same.
Cast My Body
Claire Tennant is a Central Victorian artist and life-casting specialist with a background in industrial design, film, and foundry work. Through her studio, Cast My Body she captures raw, intimate moments using the complicated technique of Life Casting; taking a mould directly from a person. Her monochromatic sculptures preserve every crease, scar and line; inviting viewers to reflect on vulnerability, memory and what it means to be seen. Claire will be body casting live at MOD on both evenings.
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You’re invited into a world where sex is art, art is sexy, and your curiosity is always encouraged. An immersive space where every shadow whispers, every space invites, every art piece flirts back, and every touch, well, that’s for you to discover.
The Museum Of Desire is Melbourne’s new must-see immersive art entertainment experience, unlike anything else in the world. Intertwining seductive art, interactive installations, and provocative ideas designed to inspire connection, exploration, ignition and fun.
Check out our gig guide, our stage guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
Torquay resident and Museum of Desire co-curator Correne Wilkie said the space was the brainchild of her and partner Dave Strong.
“Dave, my partner in the museum and in life, and I have worked at festivals and music events for 25 years each so we’ve just been really passionate about cultural development and new ideas, entertainment; it’s the world we’ve orbited in.”
“We were watching this wave of immersive entertainment coming through Europe and the US. which hasn’t become big in Australia here yet, and there’s such cool ideas but most are family-oriented.
“We were in Europe in October 2023 and went to a couple of the sex museums again and as we left I said to Dave, “it’s a cool idea, done badly” because typically they’re relics of the past and it’s not super inviting for women.
“I thought, Imagine if you could do this in a fun, playful, cool way. So we took that as our base and we know sex sells because everybody has some kind of relationship to sex, pleasure, and body identity. Let’s grow it.
“We started out with our ideas and what themes we wanted to touch on but we’re not hands-on artists so we went out and either commissioned artists with our ideas, or in other cases we just went to great artists whose work we love, to come up with their own ideas.
“It’s a combination of local, Australian and International artists because we wanted it to be an opportunity to showcase perhaps some more unknown artists.
“We’ve brought in things from all over the world.
“It’s a gallery of pics, artwork, prints, paintings, and the only place to ever exhibit; an incredible glass cast of an internal vulva.”
The museum has seen record visitation, as well as other artists reaching out to collaborate.
“Since opening we’ve had so many artists coming to us wanting to collaborate so we do have an opportunity to expand and evolve the space.” – Wilkie
“Our original vision was to see how it goes as a pop-up but we’ve had such incredible support; well ahead of what we thought in terms of visitation.
“We’re definitely hoping to remain in Melbourne and we’ll soon open March and April dates. “We’ve also built in in such a way that we can travel quite quickly to other states/overseas.
“Geelong is ranking very high in our visitation, there’s super strong numbers from all over regional Victoria which is amazing.
“We can build aspects of it into shipping containers for things like arts festivals so we certainly see bringing it regionally as a possibility.
“It is a space that’s diverse and broadly attended by audiences from ages 18 to 60+ so it’s really resonating with people from different walks of life and stages of life.
“It’s not an intimidating, high-brow space, it’s as much sideshow playground as it is museum, which makes it really curious and interesting rather than just entertaining. It’s super fun.”
The Museum Of Desire is all about exploring the beautiful, the bold, and the boundary-breaking with art that knows how to show you a good time and perhaps even entices you to see things a little differently.
Check out our chat with artist, Sunni, who curated Ornament and Grime and Confessions of a Photocopier
How long have you been creating?
I suppose in a way I’ve been creating since birth. I was born into a very artistic family, so I was constantly surrounded by creativity growing up. I have been slowly evolving and finding myself through my own practice since then, which I’m very grateful for.
What mediums do you work with?
I love jumping between, and mixing mediums! I used to wish I had just one medium as a passion that I could deeply craft, but I’m learning to love and appreciate that that’s not how my mind works, and that having an intuitive and curious approach when it comes to choosing a medium for a piece feels best for me, fostering a sense of play when creating. But in saying that, I predominantly work with paint, metals, resin, bodily artefacts, latex, ink, tattoo, graphics and photography.
What was the process from idea to fruition of your pieces?
I had already done the process for Ornament and Grime, but on a smaller scale. The process began by mapping out how many resin pube tiles I would need to produce [a lot!]. Then my favourite part, collecting the pubes to cast in the tiles. For a couple months I carried tiny ziplock bags in my bag with scissors and handed them out to as many people as possible to fill with clippings – friends, family, my baristas, strangers etc. Next was the more laborious process of individually casting each resin tile with the pubes embedded, polishing, adhering them alongside white ceramic tiles to the panels, and finally grouting.
Confessions of a Photocopier began with bouncing around ideas and mock-ups with Correne and David. Then the scanning commenced. The idea was for the participants to have fun with it – be curious, cheeky and playful, similarly to how someone at the office in the 90’s might have approached the risqué act.
Next, I filmed a POV of the bodies lowering and pressing against the glass as if it were the POV from inside the photocopier, to be projected on the ceiling. I wanted it to feel like being inside the photocopier when viewing the room, getting a peek into what it might have been witnessing and producing. To further anthropomorphise the experience of this photocopier, I had a computer (a fellow digital appliance) poetically write an inner monologue for the copier to accompany the scans and video.
I never want my work to feel directive, but rather, suggestive. I want people to feel whatever comes to them naturally, be it humour, intrigue, curiosity, disgust etc. I’d say Confessions of a Photocopier is a bit more playful and entertaining, but hopefully prompts people to be curious about their own bodies, softening taboos, shame or stigmas. Then Ornament and Grime leans more into encouraging something contemplative or introspective in the viewer about grooming practices, and how the spaces we inhabit have the power to influence social bodily ideals – how we imprint ourselves on our surroundings and vice versa.
In Ornament and Grime, pubes flirt with the white ceramic tile as a symbolic gesture reflecting bodily ideals of cleanliness and purity. The work aims to highlight the beauty in the abject whilst critiquing heteropatriarchial dictations of palatable grooming norms. Through it I explore how seemingly ordinary everyday encounters [such as a white tiled bathroom], can hold clues to dominantly valued rituals and conventions, and in turn, the ordinary thing itself can be used as a tool to subvert its conservative ideals.
Confessions of a photocopier explores a playful curiosity towards the body and taboos. Inspired by the peak era of scanning one’s ass at the office (which granted, had its own concerns at the time), this act of bodily photocopying carries a sense of fun and cheekiness when encountering these different angles and perspectives of the body. That an element of play and curiosity when exploring our own bodies can aid in disrupting the stigma around them.
The Museum Of Desire is open now and is located at 92 Rupert St Collingwood. All tickets (18+).
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