National Portrait Gallery x Canberra Enlighten Festival 2025

In 2024, the National Portrait Gallery commissioned Marri Ngarr artist, Ryan Presley to create a larger-than-life installation at the grand entrance of the venue called Paradise, Won. The artwork celebrates strength, survival and autonomy that resides within First Nations Peoples through layered narration that speaks to history and contemporary storytelling.

The National Portrait Gallery commissioned our studio to create an eye-catching animation projection based off of Ryan’s artwork for Canberra’s Enlighten Festival (28 February to 10 March, 2025) – a 10-day celebration of art, lights, food and entertainment. The animation, entitled INFERNO, is projected nightly against the exterior wall of the National Portrait Gallery.

To enable each part of the artwork to shine, we hosted a story workshop with Ryan and the NPG team to understand his work, and then our talented team used 2D and 3D animation techniques to bring the work to life. With After Effects, Maya and Cinema 4D, finer details were achieved. Indigenous music composer, James Henry provided an evocative and playful soundtrack to accompany the animation.

Paradise, Won by Ryan Presley