Puppet Commissions

Sanctum Studio | Puppet Commissions

Sanctum Theatre is a Melbourne-based visual performance ensemble presenting folk theatre in everyday spaces since 2006.

Lachlan Plain, puppets, performance, theatre, theater, Melbourne, Australia, visual, site specific, roving acts, puppetry, public art, community, design, illustration, painting, drawing, art, studio, street art, mural, murals, installation, projection, light, lantern, sculpture, sculptural, artist, exhibition

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Sanctum Studio creates public art, street art, giant puppets and special props for government, commercial and private clients. See below for examples of giant puppets. Visit lachlanplain.com for Lachlan Plain’s folio.

Sanctum Studio's Braxadragon in Planet Lulin on ABC

Braxadragon. Planet Lulin. ABC. 2024

In 2023 Sanctum Studio designed, created and puppeteered the Braxadragon puppet for Planet Lulin, screened on ABC TV in 2024.

Lulin wasn’t expecting to develop alien powers, or intergalactic invaders to crash her school science comp, but hey, Year 6 is full of surprises!

Puppet Design: Lachlan Plain

Puppet Build & Puppeteering: Lachlan Plain, Stephane Hisler & Nick Wilson.

Watch now on ABC iView.

Cocktail Lounge Cockroach. No Longer Human. 2024

Sanctum Studio created a woman-sized cockroach for the short film, No Longer Human, directed by James Haggarty.

No Longer Human is a magical realist, body horror comedy following Harper Cuthbert, a workaholic statistician. When she comes down with a mysterious illness in the hotel lobby, she is forced to reckon with her own identity, both physically and mentally.

Behind the Scene Photos

Sanctum Studio's cockroach puppet in No Longer Human, directed by James Haggarty

Sock Puppets. Moomba Parade. 2022

In 2022 Moomba Parade commissioned Sanctum Studio to create a family of 3m tall sock puppets, based on 7 year old Navalie’s Vision.

Bird Colourful Jelly Sparkles (2020)

In 2020 Moomba Festival commissioned Sanctum Theatre to create three giant puppets for the Moomba Parade.

Bug Lab (2017)

In 2017 Sanctum Theatre, in partnership with Magic Lanterns Studio, created seven giant insects to promote Melbourne Museum’s Bug Lab exhibition – a bombardier beetle, orchid mantis, dragonfly and four bees.

Sanctum Studio’s irascible puppets have been causing havoc around Australia since 2006. They won the 2018 Green Room Award for Puppetry. Their short films have been screened at St Kilda Film Festival, Perth Revelations International Film Festival and the American Independent Film Festival. Sanctum Studio has created puppets for clients such as Moomba, Museums Victoria and White Night. It has also partnered with groups such as Fusion Theatre and DVA Theatre to create performances that speak to a diversity of life experience. In all its work Sanctum Studio opens portals in the everyday, revealing the enchanted vistas that lie beyond.