A transformative exhibition exploring design, fashion and the power of reinvention.
RE:BORN marks the most expressive iteration of Cultivated to date - a maximalist, immersive showcase where fashion, art and design converge. Presented in collaboration with Romance Was Born during Melbourne Design Week 2026, this exhibition is a powerful demonstration that the most considered response to throwaway culture is imagination, moving beyond the functional to celebrate transformation as a genuinely artistic act.
Photography by Gavin Green
An Act of Design Activism
At its core, RE:BORN emerges from a shared drive to transform the overlooked and discarded, led by two distinct creative forces: Romance Was Born’s bold, expressive and otherworldly approach to making and Cultivated’s deep understanding of material, construction and form. Through restoration, reinvention and collaboration, the exhibition proposes a new way of thinking: one where nothing is wasted, and everything holds potential.
A Fully Immersive Environment
Romance Was Born - the celebrated Australian fashion house led by Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales - applies its signature imaginative vision and textile artistry to a series of second-hand furniture pieces. Each object is carefully restored and reinterpreted, transformed into an expressive new form that honours its history while elevating it into something entirely unexpected. Working in dialogue with Cultivated, the collaboration reveals the inherent value within objects often overlooked or abandoned. Together, we demonstrate that reinvention is not only possible, but essential. Realised through a wider village of designers, craftspeople and creatives across disciplines, it is this breadth of collaboration - and the productive tension it generates - that drives the work and gives it its charge. The exhibition is conceived as a fully immersive environment: lighting, architectural elements, bespoke surfaces and custom sound combine to create a sculptural terrain that blurs the boundaries between installation and experience.
Design inspired by sustainable material selection
Every component of RE:BORN has been designed with its next life in mind, with each component enduring beyond the exhibition through reuse, recycling or sale. Prioritising local craft and manufacturing, the exhibition embraces a closed loop that embodies Cultivated’s belief that considered design and zero waste are not competing ideals, but the same instinct expressed together. This reflects a broader ethos: that sustainability and creativity are not opposing forces, but deeply interconnected. Built in part from the existing NEWNEW pavilion structure alongside newly crafted elements, the exhibition embraces a layered, site-responsive approach. Through imagination and craft, RE:BORN reframes waste as opportunity and transformation as an artistic act.
The furniture, lighting, rugs and exhibition pieces presented throughout RE:BORN are available for acquisition, while all remaining components will endure beyond the exhibition through reuse, recycling, reinvention or sale. This catalogue captures the ideas, collaborators, processes and outcomes behind RE:BORN - a project that demonstrates how the most considered response to throwaway culture is imagination, and how design can continue evolving long after the exhibition ends.
“More manifesto than display, the work provokes a shift in perspective around material value: an unexpected invitation to pause before discarding, to find potential in the overlooked, and to recognise that the most compelling design doesn’t always begin with something new” - Joshua Ellis, Head of Cultivated
RE:BORN was presented and curated by Cultivated in collaboration with Romance Was Born, hosted by Artbank and featuring works from the Artbank Collection. Exhibition design by studio x us, facilitated by Cult Design, with support from Instyle, Loomtex, Interiaura, TSAR Carpets, Yeend Studio, Wild Heather Australia, Defy Design and Oslek Coatings. Sound design by Noah McShanag Munn. Tablescape by Together Nourished and Undressed.
Presented as part of Melbourne Design Week 2026, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the NGV.
