Melbourne Design Week | May 14-23 2026

ASTROLABE brought fifteen years of Christopher Boots into focused view.

Presented within the Fitzroy studio where design, prototyping and fabrication take place, the exhibition assembled completed works, early prototypes, printed media, moving image and material explorations, alongside reimaginings of key moments from the studio’s history. Rather than a chronological survey, it offered a fixed point from which the continuity of the practice could be read.

Across objects made years apart, for different cities and contexts, shared ideas begin to emerge. Certain forms return. Materials are revisited. Structural questions are asked again in new ways. What may once have appeared as separate works is revealed as an evolving body of thought.

POINTS OF ORIENTATION

Material as meaning

Quartz crystal, bronze, glass, stone and mosaic are more than decorative finishes; they’re bearers of history, character and atmosphere. The nature of each material helps shape the final work.

Geometry as language

Geometry is both discipline and expression. Proportion, rhythm, symmetry and tension give form to ideas drawn from nature, history and observation. Structure is not concealed, but made legible.

Continuity through evolution

Ideas are tested, refined and extended across time. Forms reappear in new contexts, scales and materials, each iteration sharpening what came before. Early experiments, prototypes and finished pieces reveal a practice shaped by persistence, refinement and deeper resolution.

Theatre and world-building

The work has never existed as objects alone. Through photography, film, installation and event-making, broader worlds of mood, symbolism and narrative have formed around it. ASTROLABE gathered these traces alongside the works themselves.

Studio as instrument

ASTROLABE took place inside the working studio itself. Works, materials, prototypes and cultural artefacts were encountered in the place where ideas are shaped, forms are refined and objects are made.

EXHIBITION

The exhibition was open for self-guided viewing during the afternoon, inviting visitors to move through the space at their own pace.

Around dusk, guided Exhibition & Workshop Experiences extended into the working areas of the studio, offering closer insight into materials, methods and the knowledge accumulated across fifteen years.

On Thursday 21 May, a special evening programme saw Christopher Boots in conversation with long-term collaborators across image-making, material practice and studio history.

Location

Christopher Boots Studio

324–328 Napier Street, Fitzroy