Radical Sydney

Taking its title from Terry Irving and Rowan Cahill’s book on dissident politics and actions in Sydney; this program of talks, documentary screenings and performances engage with the histories and futures of local activism concerned with housing, public space, sexuality and gender.

Zanny Begg: The Beehive

Zanny Begg’s practice incorporates film, drawing and installation, with a particular interest in exploring hidden or contested histories. 'The Beehive' is a non-linear experimental documentary exploring the unsolved murder of Sydney anti-development campaigner and glamorous style icon Juanita Nielsen in 1975.

Architecture Makes Us: Cinematic Visions of Sonia Leber and David Chesworth

'Architecture Makes Us' is a mid-career survey bringing together six video works by the collaborative duo. The exhibition explores craggy geographies, territorialisation, surveillance, exhausted systems and future philosophies.

Oliver Beer: Impossible Composition

Oliver Beer’s practice engages with sound, architecture and the memory of objects. 'Impossible Composition' reflects Beer’s experience as an artist in residence at the Sydney Opera House in 2018.

The Kookaburra Self-Relocation Project (WHOSLAUGHINGJACKASS)

Gemma Smith: Rhythm Sequence

'Rhythm Sequence' is the first career survey of Australian artist Gemma Smith. The exhibition traces the development of Smith’s practice since 2003 and its experimentation with the language of painting. It celebrates Smith’s reworking

Nicholas Aloisio-Shearer: Fragile Fantasy

The work of Nicholas Aloisio-Shearer considers the field of image production surrounding video games. Focusing on the culture of hacking and “modding”, it examines the production of fan-art and its appropriation of models and image assets from games.

Order of Events: Elliott Bryce Foulkes & Maria Smit

Multidisciplinary designers Elliott Bryce Foulkes and Maria Smit draw on a collaborative working process to explore the practice of graphic design within the museum.

John Fries Award

Since 2010, the John Fries Award has recognised the contribution and achievement of early career practitioners from Australia and New Zealand.

The Big Anxiety

The Big Anxiety – festival of arts + science + people, brings together artists, scientists and communities to question and re-imagine the state of mental health in the 21st century.

Javier Téllez: NOSFERATU (The Undead)

'NOSFERATU (The Undead)' is a film installation by Venezuelan born, New York-based artist Javier Téllez that focuses on cinema and mental illness.

A&D ANNUAL 19

The largest national showcase of graduate contemporary art and design, the UNSW Art & Design A&D Annual launches the next generation of artists, designers, makers and digital media creators.

OFO HAKE: Koe Ngatu Teuteu 'o 'Akesa mo 'Isileli Fifita

This special project features a monumental ngatu (painted tapa) created by Tongan artist and curator Ruha Fifita in New Caledonia alongside a recent ngatu made collaboratively with her family in Aotearoa New Zealand. This new work represents not only the critical role of fibre arts in Tongan community life but also the honouring of familial knowledge and intergenerational learning for the grandchildren of Akesa and 'Isileli Fifita. The title evokes the sense of arising to respond to something new, a new awareness and level of consciousness embedded in the process.

Shivanjani Lal: Beta, ek story bathao

Shivanjani Lal is a twice-removed Fijian Indian Australian artist who works with archival images, found materials, video, performance and ritual. Her work explores the indentured labour diaspora of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the histories that brought her family from India to Fiji and now to Australia. By unpacking experiences of intergenerational trauma, grief and healing in her work, Lal preserves, creates and redefines the history of the Indo-Fijian community away from the current political climate in both Fiji and India.

Wansolwara: One Salt Water

‘Wansolwara: One Salt Water’ is a series of exhibitions, performances and events from across the Pacific and throughout the Great Ocean. Wansolwara – a pidgin word from the Solomon Islands meaning ‘one-salt-water’ or ‘one ocean, one people’ – reflects not a single ocean, but rather a connected waterscape that holds distinct and diverse cultures and communities. Through art, performance and conversation, the project celebrates the depth and diversity of contemporary visual and material culture throughout these regions, placing customary practices alongside contemporary articulations in art, writing and the moving image.

ʻO le ūa na fua mai Manuʻa

O le ūa na fua mai Manuʻa brings fresh international perspectives to current endeavours to embody and awaken Indigenous sensual and spoken languages. The exhibition takes its title from a Sāmoan proverb that describes the incoming rain from the Sāmoan island of Manuʻa (currently within the unincorporated territory of the United States of America) and bittersweet or melancholic moments leading to much-needed change.

In Your Dreams

The divide between rich and poor is widening, conflict and climate change are forcing people from their homelands, displacement and homelessness are on the rise.

Tell: Contemporary Indigenous Photography

Tell: Indigenous Contemporary Photography explores Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life, history and culture through a focus on photography and its expanded field.

Christian Thompson: Ritual Intimacy

Enough خلص Khalas

The word khalas in Arabic has a myriad of definitions including: ‘stop’ ‘finish’, ‘that’s all’, ‘it’s fine’ and ‘enough!’ Khalas is an informal word verbally exchanged between people but not present in formal Arabic literature.

Local Colour: experiments in nature

Australian and international artists, designers and social enterprise groups making works coloured by natural dyes and pigments.

Make Known: The Exquisite Order of Infinite Variation

Exploring ideas about design thinking and the creative process. Presented in collaboration with UNSW Built Environment.

Eavesdropping: Susan Schuppli, Sam Kidel and Jasmine Guffond

UNSW Galleries is proud to present three performances by Susan Schuppli, Sam Kidel and Jasmine Guffond, as part of Eavesdropping, a major project by Liquid Architecture, Melbourne Law School and The Ian Potter Museum of Art exploring the politics of listening and being listened-to.

Earwitness: Jennifer Stoever, M J Grant And Andrew Brooks

UNSW Galleries is proud to present an evening of talks by and conversation with Jennifer Stoever, M J Grant and Andrew Brooks as part of ‘Eavesdropping’, a major project by Liquid Architecture, Melbourne Law School and The Ian Potter Museum of Art exploring the politics of listening and being listened-to.

Kynan Tan: Processing Data

EXIT

UNSW is proud to present the Australian premiere of a major new installation which holds a dramatic mirror to some of the immense challenges confronting the world today. EXIT is a picture of a planet in trouble.

Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality

Inspired by the words of revered Indigenous leader Vincent Lingiari, ‘that land ... I still got it on my mind’, this exhibition considers the ongoing impact of the Gurindji Walk-Off, a seminal event in Australian history that continues to resonate today.

A working model of the world

From dioramas to dolls' houses, atomic models to cloud-chambers, mandalas to maquettes – A Working Model of the World gathers together charismatic objects created to help us understand the world around us and imagine new possibilities.

Group Therapy

Group Therapy: Mental Distress in a Digital Age presents a collection of artworks and research material that explores connections between mental health and the values, political conditions, and technologies that structure our lives.