Trigger, in association with Toland Architects designed ‘The 80s Are Back’, a major exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum that inspired thought and reflection on the culture of the 80s. The unconventional and adventurous exhibition design has won accolades for the Powerhouse.

For visitors, the journey began through a ‘time-warp’ tunnel flooded with projections, lighting and sounds to stimulate and disorientate. The exhibition was an immersive experience of interactive displays and static objects, including retro computer gaming and an interactive ‘music’ cube installation of 80’s music for dancing. Over one thousand Magic Cubes were used for the feature title wall, around which a special event was created to engage Museum volunteers and staff.

Trigger Toland’s responsibilities began with naming and branding the exhibition, through to the overall 3D concept, design of both interactive and audio-visual displays and graphics. The Trigger Toland team also worked with the Powerhouse team on the design of the overall marketing campaign, exterior environmental design, print and web design, live action video art direction, photographic art direction, graphics for web, merchandise design, Museum staff uniform design and design of iphone applications.
The task was complex and the time frame was tight – just 12 weeks from initial sketch designs through to documentation, construction and fabrication, installation and public launch.

It was featured on overseas news providers such as the BBC. It has created an invigorating buzz for the Museum and has been instrumental in attracting new visitor demographics. The exhibition was extended 3 times due to popular demand.

The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), National Parks and Wildlife Service commissioned Trigger as interpretation planner for the La Perouse Headland and Bare Island precinct, a much beloved Sydney metropolitan site in the Kamay Botany Bay National Park in metropolitan Sydney. The final plan, to be released in late 2011, will be used as a template for thoughtful, respectful and appropriate tangible and intangible interpretive interventions to underline the important natural, cultural and spiritual significance of this place. Key features such as the unique landscape, the La Perouse Museum, Pere Receveur’s tomb, the La Perouse Monument, the Macquarie Watchtower and Bare Island will be enhanced through sensitive landscape design and architectural invigoration. Interpretation will be improved with innovative exhibition concepts, media, programs and activities. Trigger partners with Toland Architects, Context Landscape Design and heritage consultants Godden Mackay Logan to realise this Interpretation Plan.

Yanga was an iconic pastoral station, known across the Riverina district from the 1850s. The property was the largest freehold title in Australia before it was purchased by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) in 2005. In May 2009 Yanga National Park opened to visitors.
As part of Yanga National Park, People, Lake, Country explores the pervasive interaction between nature and culture. The exhibition connects memory, history and place through what has been a focal point for the area – water. The exhibition is a feature of the Yanga Homestead Precinct and is installed in the Cook’s Cottage building. It houses and displays Yanga’s movable heritage.
The innovative exhibition design uses simple and honest forms that are thematically appropriate and sit lightly within the heritage building; they provide a sense of openness and space in three small rooms. Clever use of soft spotlighting, a colour palette drawn from the lake-bed and innovative use of audio visuals helps create individual atmospheres for each room. Trigger conceived the renovation of the cottage interior, and designed the exhibition and all graphics.

Trigger was commissioned to design a travelling exhibition investigating Shearer’s Cooks – the folklore of the shearers cook profession; its history; conditions in the cookhouse, now and in the past; the Cook’s role in looking after the physical and emotional well being of the shearers; the cooks working today; and the type of food prepared. To help evoke the atmosphere of shearers’ cooks working conditions in the exhibition design materials in their natural state were used and the geometry seen in many shearing sheds was referenced. A table laden with photographic food images displays the typical amount of food one shearer would consume in a day and simulates a typical table setting. Overcoming budget restraints required design ingenuity in the design. Inspiration and direction was derived from the philosophies and practices of shearers’ cooks – using available and cost effective materials and tools in inventive ways. Triangular shapes cut out of the structural plywood panels removed more than 50% of the exhibition’s weight, whilst maintaining rigidity, making the exhibition lighter and less expensive to transport. The innovative concertina design of the exhibition allowed much of the structures to be folded up and stored flat for transport. Typography was developed from a study of stencilling on wool bales and was hand stencilled to the image panels.

‘Hot as Hell’ was an exhibition about the effects of heat and how rural Australian coped with it, staged across the country town of Hay’s five museums. To evocatively communicate the exhibition theme all interpretative structures were designed to resemble melted forms – there are no straight lines – and swimsuit fabric was the material used for the interpretive text and image panels. The exhibition had an interactive component, inviting visitors to tell their stories about the heat, and to read other visitors’ stories. These stories were arranged in ‘scrolls’ which were held in place by a gauze panel built into the interpretive structures. The exhibition also included supportive print material which won the best poster award at the Museums Australia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards in 2005.

Graphic Material was an exhibition of works by designers that question the material boundaries of their discipline, held at the UTS Gallery in August 2010. Trigger was selected to participate along with studios: Bert Simons, Mark Gowing Design, Multistorey, Collider and Toko by curator Aaron Seymour. The work, titled ‘Experiment’, investigates how 'users' can create different experiences within the same 'machine'. The ‘machine’ is 151 cardboard tubes clustered into a 1000mm diameter circular form through which individual images are projected using LED light pulses. Each image is a cell that 'tweens' to the adjoining cell in all directions. Movement in any direction captures a series of projections that can form an animation which is: non linear, has no beginning or end and thousands of narrative possibilities. Movement of the user determines the content and speed of the animation. The projections of figurative and abstract images are derived from the designer’s dream-motifs, but are unaligned to any prescriptive storyline to provide opportunities for the user to construct their own narrative sequences and meanings. Users become editors. The editing process is a mix of movement and vision - in a word - dance. Designer Gregory Anderson explains, ‘I am interested in seeing how people use their bodies when absorbed in facilitating the animation and also how will they look moving under the illumination of 151 circular animation cells. What quality will this movement have in the terms of a dance language? I also like the fact that his 'machine' or 'device' is the opposite of the usual sedentary state of ‘experiencing’ an animation.’

Trigger worked with iconic Australian designer Richard Allan to develop the visual identity for the Powerhouse Museum’s exhibition ‘Marc Newson: Design Works’, a retrospective of the famous designer’s work. The design features a profile portrait of Newson against a background of stars, referencing the designer’s reputation as a design ‘rock star’. Trigger was responsible for developing and applying the identity across all areas of environmental, print and advertising. Trigger also designed all exhibition graphics including a 20 metre graphic feature wall which charts Newson’s journey through his sketches and landmark design achievements.