What is this thing Horse Bazaar?

Horse Bazaar is a hospitality venue that incorporates innovative projection systems for the display of contemporary visual media. A unique environment for the enjoyment of the arts, be they digital, sonic, conversational or dance floor.


Some Horse Bazaar history

Named after the once common horse auction houses of nineteenth century Melbourne, Horse Bazaar is a meeting of old and new. At one time Melbourne’s Bourke Street was lined with ‘horse bazaars’. The car dealerships of their age, horse bazaars were fundamental to the thriving horse-drawn economy of the 1800’s and provided Melbourne’s residents with the opportunity to buy horses at auction. Sadly this colourful aspect of Melbourne’s history is largely forgotten, however a small slice lives on in the name given to Kirk’s Lane, marking the location of Kirk’s Horse Bazaar established by James Bowie Kirk in Bourke Street in late 1840.

We initially attempted to open Horse Bazaar’s first bar in a fantastic 19th century four storey warehouse building in Kirk’s Lane, on the site of the original Kirk’s Horse Bazaar, which is how the name originally came about. Due to the vagaries of local councils and unnamed heads of planning departments this was not to be. We walked away from a protracted battle when another appropriate premises presented itself, having decided that it was better to pour our energies into realising our vision rather than to continue fighting red tape, bureaucracy, and the forces of darkness. The Horse Bazaar name followed the project as HQ migrated a few blocks north to our current location at 397 Little Lonsdale St.

Panoramic projection


Screens for the display of moving images in the 20th century evolved, for technical reasons, in a rectangular format. Yet in the previous century huge panoramic painted dioramas were enormously popular sources of visual entertainment, the “virtual reality” centres of their age, these enormous canvasses were installed in their own lavish dedicated buildings and generally depicted historical scenes.

We have drawn inspiration from these popular 19th century entertainments and in the 21st century aim to reacquaint Melbournians with the power of panoramic imagery via a digital projection platform that tiles multiple video sources to create a seamless digital canvas. We hope that our projection installations will invite patrons to reconsider the role that digital imagery has assumed in society. The original 19th century canvas dioramas were not without their political edge, and we also encourage artists to explore digital media and panoramic projection as a forum for social commentary and alternate history, whilst pushing the technology and being innovative with our system.

A Manifesto kind of thing


Horse Bazaar is driven by keen interests in culture, technology, politics, music, and the arts. We aim to be open and accessible, and to support local (and far away) peoples doing interesting things. We are excited by works that look good, that engage with the world and contemporary issues, push alternate cultures and histories, and present challenges to the dominate paradigms that are taken for granted. Our panoramic projection set up is also ideal for the exploration of ambient visuals and the ability to reshape a social space with projection.