11 Stewart Street, Richmond
At 11 Stewart Street, Richmond, the work of two Melbourne-based artist commissions respond to the layered histories and evolving identity of this former industrial precinct. The collection was conceived to create moments of tactility, reflection, and connection within the arrival experience, drawing inspiration from the surrounding urban fabric, including the intersecting geometries of nearby railway crossings, the retained heritage podium and crafting a point of intersection, engagement and calm.
Richmond’s identity is deeply shaped by its past, its textile manufacturing heritage, timber and furniture production, and the constant movement of goods, people and materials along the Birrarung (Yarra River). These histories are embedded in the fabric of the suburb, where warehouses and factories once defined the rhythm of daily life and continue to inform its contemporary character of making, design and transformation.
Responding to this context, WRAP, Cera Stribley and the building owners, invited artists Makiko Ryujin and Hannah Hall to develop custom works for the lobby at 11 Stewart Street, each offering a distinct yet complementary meditation on place, materiality and change.
Together, these two commissions form a dialogue between archive and transformation, image and object, surface and space—anchoring the new lobby of 11 Stewart Street within the living histories of Richmond while opening it toward its future.
Makiko Ryujin — Inner Garden
Makiko Ryujin’s Inner Garden offers a quiet, reflective counterpoint within the lobby space. The work is grounded in Ryujin’s materially rigorous practice, which involves hand-turning timber forms on the lathe with precise control before subjecting them to fire. This act of burning becomes a pivotal gesture—introducing unpredictability, change and transformation into objects otherwise defined by exacting craftsmanship.
Rising over 2 metres in height, Ryujin’s timber sculpture Inner Garden introduces a contemplative and organic counterpoint to the architecture. Crafted through the artist’s deeply intuitive sculptural practice, the work offers a sense of stillness and refuge within the lobby environment, inviting moments of pause and sensory engagement amid the transitory nature of the space.
In this work, fire speaks to the shifting states of material and meaning, and to the ways in which both people and places are continually reshaped over time. Situated within the lobby, Inner Garden creates a moment of pause, an invitation to slow down, observe, and consider the space of transition between what was and what is becoming.
The work also resonates with the ongoing evolution of 11 Stewart Street itself, positioning the building as part of a broader continuum of change, renewal and layered histories.
Hannah Hall — Water, Work
Hannah Hall’s work explores histories of textiles, labour, and place, through cyanotype textile processes, incorporating made and found imagery and collected objects that evoke memory, industry, and the traces of human presence embedded within the site. Through layered materiality and delicate compositions, the work speaks to Richmond’s manufacturing legacy and the rhythms of making that have long shaped the precinct.
Hall’s large-scale cyanotype work draws directly from the layered histories of Richmond and the surrounding Birrarung (Yarra) corridor.
Developed through a process of photographic exposure using the centuries old process of cyanotyping, the vibrant blue work brings together imagery of the river and archival imagery of Richmond workshops with materials gathered from the site itself.
Leaves, fragments of construction material, and traces of the building environment were collected and arranged directly onto the surface, forming a layered composition that holds both past and present. The resulting deep blue image, over two metres in scale — becomes a kind of living archive, where the natural and built environments are held in tension and conversation.
Through its material sensitivity and photographic process, the work reflects the ongoing transformation of Richmond, where histories of industry continue to shape the present-day landscape.
