A multi-sensory exhibition exploring vinyl culture and music’s influence on art, fashion, film and social movements has been announced as the first major exhibition for Melbourne’s RISING festival of music, art and performance.
The Vinyl Factory: Reverb, co-presented with ACMI, Australia’s national museum of screen culture, showcases the collection of The Vinyl Factory, a London-based music and arts enterprise comprising a record label, the UK’s only major vinyl pressing plant, a performance space and an exhibition program dedicated to exploring the influence of music and sound on contemporary culture.
The Vinyl Factory: Reverb, which was originally produced and staged at 180 Studios in London, opens in Melbourne on 22 May and runs through RISING and beyond.
The Vinyl Factory: Reverb – quick links
Art and music in The Vinyl Factory: Reverb
The exhibition features major screen-based commissions, immersive art installations and deep listening experiences. It has been described by The Guardian as exploring ‘collaboration: between improvising musicians; between the worlds of art and music; between producing outfit The Vinyl Factory, which commissioned these installations; and between the artists and pop stars it has worked with. It is also about the profound mystery that is the making and sharing of music.’
The Vinyl Factory: Reverb includes works from some of the 21st century’s leading figures working with video, sound and contemporary culture including celebrated Canadian media artist Stan Douglas; British-Nigerian filmmaker and visual artist Jenn Nkiru; US filmmaker and music video director Kahlil Joseph; London based photographer and video artist Gabriel Moses; South African artist William Kentridge; Turner Prize-winning British artist Jeremy Deller; British poet and sound artist Julianknxx; Argentinian performance artist Cecilia Bengolea; and German electronic music and sound art innovator Carsten Nicolai.
Melbourne’s vinyl culture
‘Reverb captures the force of music as a cultural engine – how it shapes movements, identity and lasting communities,’ said RISING Artistic Director and CEO Hannah Fox. ‘Partnering with ACMI to present this exhibition in Melbourne extends RISING’s practice of moving beyond the stage to create new encounters between artists and audiences.’
ACMI Director and CEO Seb Chan said: ‘The importance of music and sound are often undervalued in our appreciation of the moving image. For many young people, music also still shapes identity. Through the work of contemporary artists, this exhibition celebrates the music subcultures that have defined generations, from the Black roots of techno to contemporary street dance, inviting audiences to consider why these movements mattered and still do today.
‘You’ll hear records in a new way – discovering the unexpected, or something familiar transformed. Reverb at ACMI is a fitting tribute to sound in the world’s vinyl capital.’
Melbourne hosts 66% of Australia’s total number of vinyl pressing plants, according to recent research commissioned by the Victorian Music Development Office. The For The Record report, released on 10 December 2025, also found that Melbourne has more record shops per capita than any other city in the world, and that it is home to 50% of Australia’s independent vinyl stores.
Highlights of The Vinyl Factory: Reverb
The Vinyl Factory: Reverb should appeal to a wide range of audiophiles and music lovers and will feature large-scale moving image works, immersive sound installations and interactive vinyl experiences.
Highlights include Stan Douglas’ Luanda-Kinshasa, a physical reconstruction of Columbia’s 30th Street Studio (colloquially known as The Church), where Miles Davis’ Some Kind of Blue (1959) and Billie Holiday’s Lady in Satin (1958) were created, and which Underground London praised as ‘a joyous eruption of music, with a twist’.
Carsten Nicolai’s Bausatz Noto gives visitors hands-on access to Technics turntables featuring endlessly remixable vinyl loops. The exhibition also provides access to The Vinyl Factory’s eclectic archive, featuring 100 vinyl pressings from across the musical spectrum including works by Marina Abramović, Thom Yorke, Massive Attack and more.
Another feature of Reverb at ACMI will be The Listening Room – an acoustically optimised space designed for deep listening, and unique to the exhibition for its Melbourne season.
During the day, exhibition visitors to The Listening Room can select a record and settle in. After hours, it shifts into a more intimate setting, with one-off sessions from RISING artists curated by Three Triple R underground music specialist Yasmine Sharaf, the host of Cease and Desist.
These after-hours sessions are exclusive to Reverb ticketholders and strictly limited to 50 listeners per event. The lineup will be announced with the full RISING program in March, with early ticket-buyers given first access to The Listening Room ballot.
Tracing the reverberations of sound through culture
The Vinyl Factory: Reverb – which is supported by the Victorian State Government, among other partners – traces how sound reverberates through culture.
The Victorian Minister for Creative Industries Colin Brooks said: ‘The Victorian Government is proud to back ACMI and RISING to present this exhibition to be enjoyed by thousands of local music lovers and bring more visitors to our state. This exhibition transforms the city and will be a “must see” event celebrating Melbourne’s love of music and is an exciting preview into what RISING has in store for 2026.’
The Vinyl Factory founder Mark Wadhwa said Reverb showcases the many installations commissioned and produced by The Vinyl Factory over the last 20 years.
‘Produced by 180 Studios, the exhibition brings together music and art through 10 unique, experiential artworks. A huge success in London, we’re very excited to bring it to Australia’s cultural capital,’ he said.
The original London iteration of Reverb featured 17 installations; its Melbourne season features 14 artworks in total, with the exhibition adapted and reordered for Australian audiences from its London presentation. ACMI’s presentation of The Vinyl Factory: Reverb also features a new exhibition design and interpretation by the local curatorial team.
Its RISING 2026 appearance marks the festival’s second program reveal, following December’s announcement that Aotearoa New Zealand-based street-dance collective The Royal Family Dance Crew will perform in this year’s festival.
Read: RISING 2026 names global street-dance legends as first stars of line-up
The Vinyl Factory: Reverb is co-presented by ACMI and RISING with support from the Victorian Music Development Office, an initiative of the Victorian Government delivered via Music Victoria. It was originally commissioned and produced by 180 Studios and The Vinyl Factory and staged at 180 Studios, London in 2024.
