Rone built a full-scale weatherboard house inside Chadstone and it's the best free thing in Melbourne this winter

Rone built a full-scale Australian weatherboard house inside a shopping centre and it is exactly as moving as that sounds.

The HOME exhibition opened at Chadstone on June 11 and runs until July 12, part of the shopping centre's inaugural Light to Night festival. A Chadstone shopfront has been transformed into a weatherboard house complete with time-worn interiors, familiar objects and that particular quality of Australian domestic life that sits somewhere between comfort and unease. It is a 20-minute walk-through and it is completely free.

This is Rone's first major exhibition in three years. If you know his work, you know the wait has been worth it. The Melbourne artist built his name on large-scale murals and immersive installations that deal in nostalgia, decay and the emotion stored in spaces people have left behind. HOME is the logical extension of that: not a building that has been abandoned, but a recreation of one that feels lived in and intimate, placed inside one of the most commercially curated environments in the country.

The contrast is doing a lot of work. Chadstone is the self-described Fashion Capital of Australia: aspirational, glossy, designed to make you want things. Rone has put a weatherboard house in the middle of it, the kind of house that is becoming harder to afford, that generations of Australians grew up in, that carries the specific weight of childhood domesticity. Whatever you feel walking through it probably says something about where you sit right now.

Melbourne feeds have responded accordingly. Content from inside the installation has been circulating widely, which is consistent with how Rone's work always travels. His pieces are made to be experienced in person but they photograph exceptionally well, and the weatherboard house format creates a very specific visual contrast against the shopping centre setting that reads clearly in a single frame.

Bookings are strongly recommended, with limited walk-up spots available on the day. A free shuttle runs from Federation Square to Chadstone, which takes most of the logistical friction out of getting there.

HOME runs until July 12. Winter in Melbourne just got a reason to go to Chadstone that has nothing to do with retail therapy.