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Inferno is open daily from 10 am to 4 pm in the NFSA Gallery from 22 August to 16 November 2025.
- Please note this experience includes:
- strobing visual effects
- immersive sound effects
- low light
- mild fantasy and science-fiction themes. Some content may scare young children
- The experience runs on a 7-minute loop. Visitors may enter and exit at any time.
- Seating is available inside the gallery.
- All NFSA venues are wheelchair accessible.
- Suitable for audiences who may not have a comprehensive understanding of English.
More details about accessibility at the NFSA are available on our Visit Us page.
The NFSA is open daily from 10 am to 4 pm on McCoy Circuit, Acton.
Dom’s is our modern deli and bar located within the NFSA, serving locally roasted coffee, pastries and sandwiches.
Paid visitor parking, including accessible spaces, is available onsite off McCoy Circuit, with limited street parking nearby.
About Inferno
Inferno is a hyperreal fever dream that blurs the boundary between digital and physical. It was produced in response to Mikaela Stafford’s experience as Resident Artist with the NFSA in 2025.
Drawing on Dante’s Divine Comedy, artist Mikaela Stafford reimagines descent not as moral reckoning but as spiritual transformation. Working in 3D animation, she builds an alternate reality that explores how memory, identity and simulated consciousness intertwine amid 24-hour news cycles, artificial intelligence and precarious futures.
Stafford collaborates with electronic composer Kate Durman, united by a fascination with worldbuilding and the meeting point of technology and nature. Durman’s techno-infused, transcendental score amplifies Inferno’s emotional and spatial dynamics, evoking a euphoric, club-like atmosphere while heightening its suspense and quiet optimism. As Stafford notes: ‘The essence of the work is hopeful; it’s about navigating through Inferno and coming out the other side.’
All images: Inferno (detail) 2025, Mikaela Stafford
'It’s as if Stafford has ripped open a digital portal to a hyperreal realm.'
Tara Marynowsky, NFSA Senior Curator
Artist bios
About the artist
Mikaela Stafford (pictured left) is an internationally recognised Australian artist working across motion graphics, sculpture and installation. Her practice explores world-building, speculative futures and complex relationships between humans, technology and nature. She has created work for MECCA, Jamsheed Wines, and transformed her digital art into a four-metre sculpture for PITCH Music & Arts Festival. Mikaela studied at Sydney College of the Arts and RMIT, and has collaborated with Art Projects Australia and Common Ground to support inclusive and First Nations-led storytelling.
About the composer
Kate Durman (pictured right) is a Naarm/Melbourne-based composer, sound designer and music producer known for crafting immersive sonic worlds that balance the ethereal with the visceral. She releases solo work under Purient, blending shimmering textures, ominous synths and hypnotic, club-inflected rhythms. A key figure in Melbourne’s electronic music scene, she’s also one-third of the indie-pop trio Acopia. With a distinctive style of layered ambient atmospheres and restless beats, Durman brings a unique sonic identity to a wide range of musical projects.
Photograph: Cassie Abraham
'To look at Stafford’s ... artwork is to fall into an alternative reality.'
What's on at Acton
There’s always something to inspire and delight at the NFSA. Catch a cult classic at Arc Cinema, explore the curious collection of audiovisual artefacts on display in The Library or simply drop in to enjoy our sunny heritage courtyard.
Events & Experiences
We’re open daily in Acton’s cultural precinct. Check out our ticketed events, explore our heritage building for free or simply enjoy a locally roasted coffee in our sunny courtyard.
The Library
Discover The Library: a celebration of pop culture curiosities and a treasure box of the NFSA’s most precious, wondrous and whimsical artefacts. Admission is free: your adventure begins now.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.