Penique Productions installed MATRIA, a translucent monochromatic pink inflatable membrane that fills Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building and transforms the interior into a womb-like environment. The installation measures approximately 150 meters long, 50 meters wide and rises 60 meters to the dome peak, matching the building's architecture. The intervention uses gossamer balloons and pink translucent plastic that cling to contours and sway in the wind while background sound hums and pulses. The system relies on continuous air pressure and active air circulation to remain inflated during operating hours. Themes of refuge, memory, and care inform the work, and it remains on-site until August 31, 2025.
Penique Productions takes over Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building with the inflatable and translucent installation, MATRIA. The monochromatic pink artwork forms part of the 2025 arts festival Now or Never, which runs between August 21st and 31st. It reimagines the 19th-century building as a living, breathing organism, transforming it into a warm, womb-like environment filled with sounds. The site-specific intervention uses gossamer, floaty balloons that crawl and cling onto the contours of the space, cloaking around it like an ephemeral blanket.
For MATRIA, the Barcelona-based collective draws on the idea of refuge, memory, and care. In fact, the name itself stems from 'mother' and 'motherland.' These themes run through the artwork inside Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building, as the installation recalls the state and sensation of being inside a mother's womb. The plastic material gently sways as the wind blows, and the visitors pad around through the intervention with the background music, humming and pulsating, following their every step.
MATRIA uses one inflatable membrane that covers the interior of Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building. It measures approximately 150 meters long and 50 meters wide to match the architecture's dimensions, and the public installation by the collective Penique Productions reaches 60 meters high at the dome peak. The inflatable system operates through continuous air pressure, all the while keeping the air circulation systems running throughout operating hours to keep the membrane inflated. The site-specific intervention also uses pink translucent plastic
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