Streifen’s Sentimental Pull: A Tender Exhibition About the Objects We Can’t Let Go Of.

Melbourne studio Streifen has never been interested in design for design’s sake. Founded by Madeleine Murdoch and Frances Normoyle, the practice begins with feeling—and Sentimental Pull, their March exhibition at St. Agni’s Armadale boutique, was perhaps the clearest expression of that yet. Made in collaboration with Leonard Joel, one of Australia’s most storied auction houses, it was a show about the residual tenderness of objects: the meaning that accumulates through daily contact, use, and return.

Close friends of over a decade, Murdoch and Normoyle have built what they describe as a shared internal language — a private world of references that quietly underpins everything the studio makes. “Streifen always begins with feeling. We are both deeply sensitive people, and our practice is led from that place—instinctive, intuitive, and emotionally driven.”

New and existing Streifen works sat alongside time-marked antique and vintage pieces sourced in collaboration with Leonard Joel, allowing attachment to move between past and present without hierarchy. Nothing was more important than anything else. Everything simply held its weight.

The show also marked the debut of the Coffer Dining Set. Referencing the lacquered jewellery box traditions of East Asia, Coffer carries the ceremony of objects kept with intention. Constructed from Douglas fir and finished in black japan stain, the darkness pulls the grain forward in a way that feels almost tactile from a distance. When the four chairs are seated, they pull flush beneath the table—the form closes into itself, complete. It doesn’t read as a dining set so much as a single, considered object. Hand-patinated metal plaques and visible stainless steel screws acknowledge process without apology.

Sentimental Pull has since closed, but the conversation it opened feels far from finished.

Madeleine Murdoch and Frances Normoyle of Streifen.

[Images courtesy of Streifen. Photography by Matthew McQuiggan.]