Make Believe : Encounters with Misinformation

Enter Australia’s oldest bastion of books to better understand our misinformed world.

Real or fake? Truth or farce? We blink through these questions all the time—when we scroll through social media, read the news, or even chat with friends. Misinformation is everywhere.

But what fuels it? Why do we keep falling for it? And how do our own biases shape what we accept as true? Enter Australia’s oldest public library for Make Believe: Encounters with Misinformation—a journey that unpacks how misinformation has shaped life and culture.

Explore four themes—our planet, our bodies, our histories, and our freedoms—through real-life examples and thought-provoking responses from artists and industry experts.

From misleading medical drawings that influenced generations of doctors to the advertising’s power in masking the environmental impacts of our choices, this exhibition highlights the scale of the problem while inviting us to examine our own role and how we can effect change.