Exhibition
An exhibition at State Library Victoria imaginatively explores the complexities and challenges of misinformation. By Gabriella Coslovich.
Make Believe: Encounters with Misinformation at the State Library Victoria
At last, an exhibition not manifestly aimed at the “Insta” crowd. On the day I visited, not a single selfie-seeker availed themselves of a colourful anatomical model of a clitoris as a flattering backdrop. I did, however, overhear some interesting conversations as people reflected on the intricacies of the female sex organ.
The model clitoris is on show at State Library Victoria’s intriguing exhibition Make Believe: Encounters with Misinformation, which draws on the library’s collection to explore one of the most contentious, complex and relevant issues of our time -– “misinformation”. Recognised as a threat to social cohesion and democracy, it’s held responsible for a range of societal harms, from ideological polarisation to political violence.
While the term “misinformation” is a relatively recent coinage – it was dictionary.com’s word of the year in 2018 – the spread of false, inaccurate or wrong information, whether unwittingly (misinformation) or intentionally (disinformation) is not new. “Misinformation” has occurred throughout history, as this exhibition makes clear. The advent of new technologies has exacerbated its prevalence, making it possible to share misinformation at lightning speed and with global reach. Artificial intelligence is adding to the challenge, making it harder to distinguish between the real and the fabricated.
The exhibition bears the hallmarks of uber-designer Peter King. The entrance of the library’s Keith Murdoch Gallery has been transformed into a nerve-rattlingly bright gateway, with neon-lit geometric columns and an arched pediment, a nod to the library’s classical façade and the sense of authority it is meant to induce. One passes through this gateway into a central space that cleverly mimics the sensorial assault of the online world – overhead lines of neon lights change colour from purple to green to blue to white, giving the space an unsettling glow.
A double row of screens shaped like giant smartphones appears to extend to infinity, reflected by a warped mirrored wall. Before each screen is a plump armchair where one can sit and watch as librarians, artists, doctors and other professionals talk about misinformation. Snippets from academic journals flash on screen, reporting, for example, that “misinformation gets six times more clicks, likes and shares than reliable news sources that accurately report events”. On the plus side, we learn that “clickbait” is not as influential as it used to be. Interestingly, it’s older people who tend to click on it the most.
From this central space, four rooms branch off like online portals. Here artists and a group of doctors respond to objects from the library’s collection. Each room provides a “case study” related to the concept of misinformation. In the first room, Wiradjuri and Ngiyampaa artist Charlotte Allingham looks at the distorting effects of advertising. Allingham takes as her focus the Shell oil company’s successful “Discover Australia” advertising campaign of the late 1950s and ’60s that aimed to encourage road trips across the continent by using idyllic illustrations of native wildflowers, sea life and shells.
In the 1920s, the British Imperial Oil Company (as the Shell Company of Australia was previously named) engaged Australian illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, known for her charming watercolours of elves and fairies, to create The Shell Fairy Calendar, featuring fairies filling shells with Shell lubricating oil.
Allingham renames the campaign “Destroying Australia” and responds with large murals that subvert the symbolism of Shell: beautiful “Blak Fairies” play in an enchanting bush landscape of flowering wattle and dancing butterflies. The Shell symbol in the middle of a fiery sun is substituted with the Aboriginal flag. On one wall, an apocalyptic industrial scene highlights the environmental cost of fossil fuels – here the Shell sun shines down on a black river of dead fish.
In case study two, Hong Kong-born, Melbourne-based artist Scotty So mischievously demonstrates how easily one can fool people on the internet with fake imagery, while commenting on the historic exoticisation of Chinese people. The library’s collection includes photos of white magicians adopting Chinese personas to accentuate their mysticism and boost their careers. So has created a salon hang of photographs where the viewer is constantly trying to ascertain what is real and what is not -– he mixes “genuine” photos from the library collection with photos of himself in various guises.
He intentionally plants some of these manipulated images online. The image of So as a 1930s burlesque performer ends up being sold on Ebay as a genuine “vintage” photo. He buys it back for $33.25 and the invoice is part of the salon hang. What is more real – the image of a white man dressed up as a Chinese magician, or So dressed up as an exotic Chinese dancer from the 1930s? So addresses questions of race, gender and objectivity with refreshing humour and ambiguity.
Case study three is more explicit and equally fascinating. Here we learn about the gender bias of the medical profession, which has long used the male body as the standard. Incredibly, it wasn’t until 1998 that the full anatomy of the clitoris was accurately mapped, by Australia’s first female urologist, Professor Helen O’Connell. Old anatomy texts are displayed alongside the “Cliterate” model, designed in 2023 and based on O’Connell’s research. Created by a team of occupational therapists from Melbourne’s Thrive Rehab, the “Cliterate” is colourful, spherical and pulls apart like a child’s toy – it won a Good Design award last year. “Misinformation” about female anatomy continues, with women signing up for “labioplasty” to conform to unreal expectations. As Dr Jennifer Hayes, who completed a PhD on the subject firmly states, “there is no normal vulva”.
The final room, by Iranian–Australian artist Sofi Basseghi, explores the role of art and poetry in resisting censorship. Her mesmerising video installation features actor Salme Geransar reciting the works of Persian women poets from the past 1000 years whose words are remarkably bold and remain vitally relevant. “That woman whose tempestuous hair is like a wild beast’s mane, / Stuck in the house, held by a chain here, / She can’t be kept locked up,” Geransar recites. She recalls the fate of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested and later killed by Iranian police in 2022 for incorrectly wearing the headscarf, prompting widespread protests.
Curating art to illustrate a point risks reducing a work’s meaning rather than opening it up to multiple readings. The artworks in this exhibition generally avoid that fate. The exhibition takes a sweeping view of “misinformation” and at times itself feels like information overload. How do we make sense of it all?
Libraries are at the forefront of the contemporary battle to address “misinformation”, even as they themselves come under attack by so-called book banners. State Library Victoria has taken a particularly imaginative approach to the problem in this concise yet expansive exhibition, which is by turns disturbing, humorous, puzzling and always captivating.
Make Believe: Encounters with Misinformation is showing at State Library Victoria until January 26, 2026.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 24, 2025 as "Lies and damned lies".
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