Discover what’s on at Fed Square

Refresh your ideas for living more sustainably, with Fed Square&#8217;s spring program of events and activities for everyday changemakers.

Come and join Melbourne’s own Trash Puppets for a free performance, a creative workshop, or both, and learn how everyday rubbish can be transformed into puppets in your own home.

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Kids + Families

Performance

TRASH PUPPETS

<h2>Get spinning and watch a film that you have powered into existence on the big screen. </h2>
Want to find out how much effort is involved in powering a movie? Head into the Edge and jump on a bike. This Pedal Power system provides human-generated continuous power of 250 watts, enough to power a digital screen – and watch a film.  
10am–12pm screenings: watch short documentaries from the Environmental Film Festival and Transition Film Festival, including the Emmy-winning Humanity Has Not Yet Failed and KUAP. 
1pm–3pm screenings: catch the below selection of classic Studio Ghibli films: 
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My Neighbour Totoro – 19th September.
Two young girls, Satsuki and Mei, have moved with their father into a new home in the country, while their mother recovers from illness in a nearby hospital. To their surprise, they soon discover that they share this home with some rather unusual creatures and even stranger neighbours &#8211; forest guardians that the girls dub Totoro. When trouble occurs, their new friends will help them rediscover hope.
G: The content is very mild in impact
 
Laputa Castle in the Sky – 20th September.
It&#8217;s a world out of time. A world where a young boy&#8217;s dreams soar as high as the mythical floating island known as Laputa. Pazu&#8217;s dreams are about to be realized, when Sheeta, a young princess and government escapee, literally floats down from the skies, saved only by a mysterious, glowing pendant-a pendant comprised of Levitation Crystal, the supposed power of Laputa itself!
Now, pursued by pirates and Secret Service agents alike, Sheeta and Pazu seek the fabled island to fulfill Pazu&#8217;s dreamquest and learn the secrets of Sheeta&#8217;s clouded heritage.
G: The content is very mild in impact
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Howl’s Moving Castle – 21st September.
Sophie, an average teenage girl working in a hat shop, finds her life thrown into turmoil when she is literally swept off her feet by a handsome but mysterious wizard named Howl. After this chance meeting she is turned into a 90-year old woman by the vain and conniving Witch of the Waste. Embarking on an incredible adventure to lift the curse, she finds refuge in Howl&#8217;s magical moving castle where she becomes acquainted with Markl, Howl&#8217;s apprentice, and a hot-headed fire demon named Calcifer. As the true power of Howl’s wizardry is revealed, and his relationship with Sophie deepens, our young grey heroine finds herself fighting to protect them both from a dangerous war of sorcery that threatens their world.
PG: Scary Scenes
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Spirited Away – 22nd September.
From Hayao Miyazaki, one of the most celebrated filmmakers in the history of animated cinema, comes the Academy Award winning masterpiece, Spirited Away.
Spirited Away is a wondrous fantasy about a young girl named Chihiro who discovers a secret world of strange spirits, creatures and sorcery. When her parents are mysteriously transformed, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free herself and return her family to the outside world.
PG: Supernatural Themes
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Image credit: 2040 Team

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Free

Pedal Power Pictures

<h2>Visitors please note: Numinous Bloom will not be open on Friday 22 November as previously advertised. Numinous Bloom will open on Saturday 23 September.</h2>
<h2>Enter a mechanical garden of wonder and play to unveil some of the mysteries of nature. </h2>
Numinous Bloom is an interactive mechanical garden for all ages, featuring triggered animatronics, sound and light. An installation you can play, it uses technology to mimic the way plants communicate with each other through symbiotic relationships with fungi.  
The flowers and habitat are 3D printed from recycled plastic, creating beauty from waste.  
Converse with nature in this immersive installation that showcases the complexities and intricate patterns found in the natural world.  
Drop by the Atrium to experience this garden world of art and technology, inspired by nature.  
Presented by Fed Square. 
Image credit: Paul Dunn
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Numinous Bloom daytime trial at Royal Botanical Gardens Melbourne" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/798256645?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963" width="500" height="500" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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Installation

Numinous Bloom

Discover All

RESET

Discover restaurants, bars and cafes serving up Melbourne&#8217;s best breakfast, coffee, lunch, drinks or dinner for any occasion and budget.

Eat + Drink

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Pilgrim Bar

Big Esso by Mabu Mabu is an all-day bar and kitchen

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People sitting at tables in Big Esso

Big Esso - Mabu Mabu

Contemporary day-to-night food and wine bar experience

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Hero ACMI

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Taxi Kitchen

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Victoria by Farmer's Daughters

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NGV Cafe

Find out about the major events coming up at Fed Square in the next few months.

The Victorian Seniors Festival is a major state-wide festival for seniors. For over 40 years, the festival has provided opportunities for senior Victorians to participate in a range of activities and events and connect with their community. Celebration Day at Fed Square on Sunday 1 October, 12pm-7pm, is the launch event for the festival with a 7-hour line-up of free entertainment and activities for older Victorians.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.seniorsonline.vic.gov.au/victorian-seniors-festival" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.seniorsonline.vic.gov.au/victorian-seniors-festival</a> 
Follow on Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SeniorsCardVIC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.facebook.com/SeniorsCardVIC</a> 
Follow on Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/vicseniorsfestival/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.instagram.com/vicseniorsfestival/</a>

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Festival

2023 Victorian Seniors Festival Celebration Day

Melbourne International Games Week (MIGW) is Asia Pacific&#8217;s largest digital games celebration. The week features conferences, events and activities for the games industry, educators, games enthusiasts, and the general public. ​
In collaboration with Creative Victoria and ACMI, Fed Square is set to host for the first time, Big Games Night Out, a Melbourne city-wide event, transforming the CBD into a realm of games-themed fantasy. ​
​Featuring a gaming arcade, live music stages, cosplay runway, open-air gaming experiential activations, pop-ups, games-themed buskers and a major games-themed civic ritual at Fed Square. ​

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Melbourne International Games Week

Presented by The Wheeler Centre
Join one of Australia’s most accomplished and admired journalists, Leigh Sales, live in Melbourne as she discusses her new book Storytellers.
Leigh Sales is one of Australia’s most beloved journalists. A veteran anchor of the ABC’s flagship current affairs program 7.30, the new presenter of Australian Story, co-host of hugely popular podcast Chat 10 Looks 3 with Annabel Crabb, and a bestselling author, Sales has been recognised with three Walkley Awards over the course of a career that has seen her interview countless political leaders, innovators and artists.
In her new book, Storytellers: Questions, Answers and the Craft of Journalism, Sales turns her talents on her remarkable peers – including Waleed Aly, Richard Fidler, Niki Savva and Stan Grant – revealing candid insights into the craft of journalism and the power of storytelling.
At this exclusive Spring Fling event in conversation with ABC producer Elias Clure, Sales will share insights from her career in the media and offer a peek behind the curtain of this vital but often misunderstood profession.
Event partners 
<a href="https://7ampodcast.com.au/episodes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7am</a> 
<a href="https://creative.vic.gov.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Creative Victoria</a> 
<a href="https://www.readings.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Readings</a>
Follow <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wheelercentre" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wheeler Centre on Facebook</a> 
Follow <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wheelercentre/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wheeler Centre on Instagram</a> 
Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/wheelercentre" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wheeler Centre on Twitter</a>

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Talk

Leigh Sales: Beyond the Headlines

Presented by The Wheeler Centre
Walkley Award-winning photojournalist Andrew Quilty is joined by his cousin, Archibald Prize-winning artist Ben Quilty, to discuss his new book This is Afghanistan.
About the Event
Photojournalist Andrew Quilty is one of this country’s most distinguished war reporters. Artist Ben Quilty is renowned for his bold, confrontational paintings and political activism. The two also happen to be cousins.
Appearing together in conversation for the first time, they will discuss Andrew’s new book, This is Afghanistan, which offers a unique visual record of this vibrant, complex and resilient country’s last nine years of conflict and turmoil. Ben’s acclaimed portrait series, After Afghanistan, was created during his time as Australia’s Official War Artist in Afghanistan, and presents a deeply impressionist artistic record of the experiences of Australian forces embedded in that country.
Together, they will reflect on the immense responsibility of bearing witness through the camera lens and on the canvas. They’ll consider the power of photography and art to shed light on conflict and human rights, and the moral imperative not to look away.
Diana Sayed, CEO of the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights, will open the event, followed by a keynote address from Shuja Jamal. A researcher, advocate and the former director-general for international relations on Kabul’s National Security Council, Jamal will speak to the current political and social reality in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Western forces.
A portion of proceeds from this event will go to the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights.
Event partners 
<a href="https://7ampodcast.com.au/episodes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7am</a> 
<a href="https://creative.vic.gov.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Creative Victoria</a> 
<a href="https://www.readings.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Readings</a> 
<a href="https://amwchr.org.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights</a>
Follow <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wheelercentre" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wheeler Centre on Facebook</a> 
Follow <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wheelercentre/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wheeler Centre on Instagram</a> 
Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/wheelercentre" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wheeler Centre on Twitter</a>

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Creative Witnessing: Andrew Quilty and Ben Quilty

Following a huge first year, Garage Band presented by ALWAYS LIVE, JOF and Fed Square is back and ready to welcome a fresh batch of budding musos to the big stage. We&#8217;ve searched far and wide for the best in up-and-coming talent and will be inviting 25 young bands under the age of 21 from across the state to perform LIVE at Fed Square this October, giving them the opportunity to wow crowds in the heart of Melbourne.
With 2022 alumni going on to play with the likes of Mia Wray and Tex Perkins, release their own music, and garner media interest from right across the country, Garage Band has fast solidified itself as a pivotal jumping-off point for the next generation of Victorian musical talent. Stay tuned for more information on performers coming soon and be sure to get down for a great afternoon of free live music fun for all.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.alwayslive.com.au/program/garage-band" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.alwayslive.com.au/program/garage-band</a>

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Music

Garage Band

There’ll be Pole Dancing at Fed Square!  The Polish Festival @ Fed Square is back and better than ever!
The 19th Polish Festival @ Fed Square is a remarkable celebration of Polish culture in the heart of Melbourne.
Delight in the flavours of Polish cuisine. Embrace the inspirational display of folkloric dancing, creating an electric atmosphere for all to enjoy and maybe even try. For those looking for a more classical atmosphere, join us at The Edge for performances by a variety of exceptionally talented artists.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.polishfestival.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.polishfestival.com.au/</a> 
Follow Polish Festival on Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/polishfestivalfedsquare/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.facebook.com/polishfestivalfedsquare/</a> 
Follow Polish Festival on Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/polfestmelbourne/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.instagram.com/polfestmelbourne/</a>
Event Partners
City of Melbourne 
Fed Square 
Department of Families, Fairness and Housing

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Community

Polish Festival @ Fed Square

Coming Up

Visit some of Australia's most significant cultural attractions, including ACMI, the Koorie Heritage Trust and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. 

Your museum of screen culture. Navigate the universe of film, TV, videogames and art.

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ACMI

Discover the history of Aboriginal Victoria and South-East Australia

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KHT In Conversation

Koorie Heritage Trust

The world’s first major gallery dedicated exclusively to Australian art.

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TIWI

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia

Museums + Galleries

Events and activations to inspire us all to make changes to our daily lives, help minimise our negative impact on the environment, and increase our positive impact.  

The Knot

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Goddess: Power, Glamour, Rebellion at ACMI

Trailblazers. Nonconformists. Rebels. Agitators and Instigators. On and off screen.

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MicrosoftTeams-image (15)

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Liam Young: Planetary Redesign at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia

The first major Australian solo exhibition of filmmaker and speculative architect Liam Young.

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Asia Pacific's largest digital games celebration comes to Fed Square

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Venue Hire

Activate at Melbourne's best venue hire space.

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Deakin-Edge-Fed-Square

The Edge

<h2>Time to take a breath – renew, refresh and reinvent.   </h2>
This spring at Fed Square, RESET offers us an opportunity to start afresh.  
Renew those good intentions to plant some seedlings, start a compost bin or learn how to darn our woollies.  
Refresh our ideas and get inspired by new ways of living sustainably.   
And let’s reinvent the way we do things – tiny changes in our daily lives add up to big collective impact. It’s never too late to start.  
RESET is a full program of events and activations, including markets, festivals, immersive activities and practical and creative workshops, to inspire us all to make some little – or big – changes to our daily life, to help minimise our negative impact on the environment, and increase our positive impact.  
This spring, why not join us at Fed Square to reaffirm our commitment – big or small – to make a positive change?  
Let’s RESET, together.

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Atrium

The Main Square

Main Square

Swanston St Forecourt

Exhibitions

Trailblazers. Nonconformists. Rebels. Agitators and Instigators. On and off screen. 
Through iconic stories, characters and moments from over 120 years of moving image history, Goddess celebrates the women who shaped their own roles, took creative control and fought a system that tried to exploit them.
From the swagger of Mae West and glamour of Anna May Wong to the powerful punch of Pam Grier, ACMI&#8217;s next home-grown exhibition salutes the groundbreaking achievements and impact of the screen’s revolutionary leading ladies. Though behind the scenes since the beginning of cinema, women were too often reduced to bombshells, starlets and screen sirens. But goddesses are far more than sexist stereotypes.
Featuring never-before-seen costumes, original sketches, interactive experiences and cinematic treasures, including iconic outfits worn by Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich, as well as stories from across the globe, Goddess honours the women who wielded glamour, sensuality and smarts to challenge narratives, defy expectations and fashion personas that transcend tropes.
Whether it’s Tilda Swinton, Geena Davis or Michelle Yeoh, today’s goddesses unapologetically occupy spaces and roles that shatter glass ceilings, project solidarity and reframe society through essential stories, brave voices and complex characters. They’ve overcome convention and an industry built to confine them with collective power and fearless creativity to imagine their own heroes and take their own roads.
Extended Hours
<ul>
<li>Open til 8pm on Saturdays from Sat 15 April.</li>
<li>Open on select Thursdays til 1am – see ACMI&#8217;s <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/goddess/nights/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Goddess Nights</a> program.</li>
</ul>
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/goddess/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/goddess/</a>
Goddess: Power, Glamour, Rebellion is curated by Bethan Johnson, ACMI and is part of Melbourne Winter Masterpieces® 2023

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First Peoples

Koorie Heritage Trust are excited to announce that they are expanding to all three levels in the Yarra Building at Fed Square, to create a stand-alone and independent First Peoples arts and cultural centre.
During the renovations <a href="https://shop.koorieheritagetrust.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shopKOORIE POP-UP</a> will be re-located to the rear of the Main Square across from Hero. A fresh and vibrant design, visitors will be able to purchase unique and authentic gifts designed and produced by many Victorian First Peoples artists, designers and businesses.

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shopKOORIE POP-UP

Liam Young: Planetary Redesign is the first major Australian solo exhibition of filmmaker and speculative architect Liam Young. Through an immersive display of moving image works, costumes and photography, Young proposes thought-provoking redesigns of our planet that offer a radically optimistic solution to the climate crisis.
On display in Melbourne direct from its world-premiere at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture, The Great Endeavor, 2023, depicts the construction of a global system of greenhouse gas extraction and storage, powered by vast renewable energy infrastructures – together capable of removing huge quantities of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. To achieve this, Young imagines a mobilisation of workers and resources on a planetary scale, enabled by international cooperation like never before.
Also on display is Young’s film Planet City, 2016-2023, which provides a window into an alternative urban future. Commissioned for the NGV Triennial in 2020 and supported by the Bagôt Gjergja Foundation, it depicts the design of a new city for the whole human population of the earth. It questions whether the accelerating impacts of climate change could urge everyone to retreat together into one hyper-dense sustainable metropolis, providing space for the rest of the planet to recover as wilderness.
The exhibition speculates that addressing the climate emergency is no longer a technological problem – it is now a social, cultural, and political one. It offers hope that through creativity and collective action we can move together towards ecological balance on earth.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/liam-young-planetary-redesign/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/liam-young-planetary-redesign/</a>
Banner image credit: Liam Young The Great Endeavor 2023 (detail)

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Atrium Precinct

Embrace the interconnectivity of everything with Memo Akten&#8217;s multi-screen work exploring the merging of human and non-human consciousness – via the coded AI musings of octopus-like digital beings.
Originally beginning as an NFT collection on the ecologically friendly blockchain Tezos, Memo Akten&#8217;s eight-channel video installation, Distributed Consciousness, features 256 unique images of octopus-like Tentacular Critters created with custom Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning coded by the artist.
It was later revealed that each image had AI-generated text cryptographically encoded in it – a Verse. Invisible to the human eye, but readable by code, the collection forms a poem, a book, a manifesto. The manifesto is a human-machine co-creation meditation spanning consciousness, free will, life, death, art, technology, ritual, ecology, economy and sustainability. Each Verse was released as an audio-visual reading.
Cephalopods are incredibly intelligent; only 10% of their neurons are in a central brain, while the rest is distributed across their body, with two thirds in their arms. In a sense, they have a decentralised nervous system. Distributed Consciousness draws parallels between the distributed computation performed by smart-contract based blockchains, and the anthropological timeline, with differently evolved mythologies and deities, promoting alternative cultural values to the exploitative, extractivist, purely profit-driven neoliberal world we find ourselves in today.
Staged as a place of worship, our Tentacular deities invite us to face our final Copernican Trauma, to face the reality that humans may not be the sole keepers of what we think of as “intelligence”, “creativity” or even “consciousness”. The project also uses the extraordinary alien intelligence of cephalopods, to reflect on the new synthetic alien intelligences we are building in machines in the form of AI.
In these times of ecological collapse and urgency, we are invited to let go of the dangerous dichotomy of “Man vs Nature”, and instead embrace the interconnectedness of all human, non-human, living and non-living things across manifold scales of time and space, and actively work towards multi-species flourishing.
For more information visit: <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/memo-akten-distributed-consciousness/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/memo-akten-distributed-consciousness/</a>
Image credit: Memo Akten, Distributed Consciousness (Critters video stills), 2021. Courtesy the artist