The Melbourne Weather Forecasts is a quirky marriage of Japanese culture’s fortune-telling (omikuji) and weather forecasting. It is an interactive exhibition piece that takes inspiration from Japan’s many vending machine toy capsule (gachapon) machines, fortune devices and omikuji, that embody people’s enjoyment of simple randomness and luck. But what else seems to fall into the realm of wild luck? Melbourne’s unpredictable minute to minute weather. Humour and the weather was used as a familiar starting point to introduce elements of Japanese culture and activities to a Melbourne audience. 

To use the Melbourne Weather Forecasts:

1) Shake the omikuji box and draw one stick
2) The characters on the stick will show the weather in Japanese, corresponding to a folded fortune slip
3) Unfold the slip of paper for specific weather predictions such as temperature, chances of precipitation and humidity.
4) Below these, there is a suggested activity to be done which relates to Japanese culture, as well as the wooden charm accompanying the fortune slip