The Piano: Hook, Line and Tinker is a creative research project in-the-making, honouring the many treasured family heirlooms and increasing number of neglected pianos that are often haphazardly discarded, and headed to landfill.

The Stage Two creative development has just been completed, as part of Chamber Made’s ‘Little Operations’ Program 2025.

This project has evolved from from a deconstructed piano ‘postmortem’, into a large aerial suspension and sonic installation (7.5 x 4m), featuring an exploded view of an entire upright piano, with the inside action components precisely positioned, spilling out as a freeze-frame handcrafted sound-wave, from the cabinet and iron frame, all the way to the highest notes.

It is a unique insight into a piano’s modus operandi and its complex mechanical beauty, where each individual part of a retired (and unserviceable) acoustic upright is suspended in space, including the inside action mechanism – the levers, dampers and hammers – and the keys, strings, and cabinetry.

“My piano can’t be tuned anymore. What do I do with it now?”

Stay tuned for the final development and public premiere in 2026.. for presentation enquiries and further information / technical specifications please get in touch!

The Piano: Hook, Line and Tinker invites audiences to pause for thought at a piano’s journey and its lifetime of musical stories.

During the initial creative development of this project, the audience were invited to walk through and examine the many thousands of parts that were disassembled from a piano, laid out carefully after the stop-motion creation. Let’s not see these beauties end up in landfill!

The initial creative development of this project was supported by Punctum Inc, in partnership with Creative Ballarat, followed by Stage II as part of Chamber Made’s ‘Little Operations’ Program 2025. Piano/s donated by Pianos Recycled.

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