R.M.Williams transforms boot craft into mechanical theatre
A new installation at Powerhouse Museum Parramatta brings nine decades of Australian bootmaking to life through an immersive mechanical display, honouring the precision and heritage that define the brand.
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Within the exhibition space at Powerhouse Museum Parramatta, a wooden framework holds something rather extraordinary: a mechanical boot rack that moves with deliberate purpose, transforming the utilitarian into the theatrical. This is R.M.Williams’ new installation, titled ‘The Australian Icon, Made in Australia’, conceived as a choreography of craftsmanship that traces the journey from raw material to finished boot.
The centrepiece draws inspiration from the timber racks that have supported production in the brand’s Adelaide workshop for nearly a century. Here, though, those functional structures have been reimagined as a kinetic sculpture. Natural timber dowels rotate and shift with measured grace, their pale wood caught in warm gallery light. Black leather boots sit cradled at intervals, their polished surfaces reflecting the mechanical motion around them. The installation moves like a slow meditation on making, each rotation revealing another stage in the boot’s evolution.
Developed by Kurt Sherer of R.M.Williams and artist Sarah Spilsbury of Dashing, the work forms part of a larger exhibition exploring retail, design and public life in Australia. The installation echoes the brand’s 2024 George Street window commission in Sydney, translating that global showcase into a more intimate, immersive experience. Where the window announced R.M.Williams to passersby, the mechanical display invites visitors to witness the hands and hours that make each boot.
For more than ninety years, R.M.Williams has remained committed to the marriage of precision and heritage, evolving with the communities and landscape that shaped it. This installation crystallises that philosophy: through movement, material and considered design, it elevates a workshop tool into something that speaks to the enduring place of Australian craftsmanship within the country’s cultural and retail landscape.
The installation is on display at Powerhouse Museum Parramatta’s The Mall as part of the museum’s exhibition exploring design and retail heritage in Australia.
Imagery courtesy of R.M.Williams (@rmwilliams).
