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Exhibitions

Encompassing three principal exhibition spaces, UNSW Galleries is a platform for the presentation and interpretation of contemporary visual and material culture.

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Current & Upcoming

Past Exhibitions

2023

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David Sequeira: History & Infinity

Works by celebrated Australian artist David Sequeira, who uses languages of colour, space, and...

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Renee So: Provenance

The first major exhibition of Renee So's work in Australia, featuring newly commissioned ceramic...

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Barangga: First Nations Design

Celebrating design and making practices as a vital form of cultural knowledge in First Nations...

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James Tylor: Turrangka...in the shadows

A ten-year survey bringing together Tylor's daguerreotypes, digital photographs, Kaurna cultural...

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Blanche Tilden—ripple effect: a 25 year survey

The first comprehensive survey of Tilden's critically acclaimed practice.

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Macon Reed: Eulogy for the Dyke Bar

Offsite Project: UNSW Galleries and National Art School present an installation by American...

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Jessica Loughlin: of light

JamFactory’s ICON exhibition celebrates one of Australia’s most internationally acclaimed glass...

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THE PARTY

UNSW Galleries and Sydney WorldPride present a landmark exhibition celebrating LGBTQI+ party...

2022

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Consuelo Cavaniglia: through the door that holds you

New works made with glass that consider how we see and understand space.

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Liam Fleming: Falling into Space

New works that explore the potential of the glass medium during fire polishing, fusing and...

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Louis Grant: awash

A collection of new works pairing back materials, allowing the glass medium to be both fragile...

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Mel Douglas: Out of Line

Recent works by Mel Douglas exploring the potential and flexibility of glass as a material for...

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Sandra Selig: exploring giant molecules

The largest exhibition to date of Australian artist Sandra Selig, bringing together key examples...

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Gordon Hookey: A MURRIALITY

The first survey of renowned Waanyi artist Gordon Hookey, charting three decades of practice...

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Bic Tieu: Objects In-between

New works by Southeast Asian Australian designer, maker and researcher Bic Tieu.

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Inoka Samarasekara: The Tangled Jewelled Maze

New works by Inoka Samarasekara that preserve and reimagine Sri Lankan jewellery forms.

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Liz Williamson: Weaving Eucalypts Project

Collaborative project by Australian weaver Liz Williamson exploring local colour and shared...

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Pliable Planes: Expanded Textiles & Fibre Practices

Major exhibition project drawing together twelve practitioners who reimagine practices in...

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Jacobus Capone: Orisons

Recent works by Western Australian artist Jacobus Capone that reflect on human and ecological...

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Elizabeth Pulie: #117 (Survey)

The first survey of Australian artist Elizabeth Pulie, mapping 30 years of practice.

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Izabela Pluta: Nihilartikel

Polish-born Australian artist Izabela Pluta interprets and re-conceptualises the function of...

2021

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Khadim Ali: Invisible Border

Survey of Hazara artist Khadim Ali exploring the normalisation of war and the experience of...

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Fernando do Campo: To companion a companion

New paintings, video and performance lecture that propose the human as the companion species to...

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Kirsten Coelho: The Return

New and recent works from ceramicist Kirsten Coelho inspired by Grecian and Roman artefacts.

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Kyoko Hashimoto: Bioregional Bodies

Contemporary jewellery made from sandstone, oyster shells and coal sourced from the Sydney Basin...

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Sam Smith: Capture

Bringing together moving image projects from the past decade alongside a major new commission.

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Gerwyn Davies: Plush

Exploring the expression of camp as an aesthetic strategy in photographic self-representation...

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John Fries Award

The seven finalists of the 2021 John Fries Award present newly commissioned works.

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INFRACTIONS

Feature length video installation platforming the struggles of Indigenous cultural workers...

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Megan Cope: Fractures & Frequencies

Survey of works investigating listening practices and extractive industries in Australia.

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The Colour Chart

Research initiative addressing issues of race hierarchy and exclusion within Australia’s visual...

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The Colour Line: Archie Moore & W.E.B Du Bois

Works by Kamilaroi/Brisbane artist Archie Moore in dialogue with W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963).

2020

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Friendship as a Way of Life

Bringing together more than 20 artists and collaborative groups to explore queer kinship and...

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Samuel Hodge: The Wit of the Staircase

Drawing on a twenty-year archive of artistic practice, Samuel Hodge presents an ambiguous and...

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Skye Wagner: Opacity Shift

Skye Wagner’s photographs explore the circulation and digital malleability of contemporary...

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'O le ūa na fua mai Manu'a

Through fresh fresh international perspectives, this exhibition endeavours to embody and awaken...

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

This special project features a monumental ngatu (painted tapa) created by Tongan artist and...

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Shivanjani Lal: Beta, ek story bathao

Shivanjani Lal is a twice-removed Fijian Indian Australian artist who works with archival images...

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Wansolwara: One Salt Water

A series of exhibitions, performances and events from across the Pacific and throughout the...

2019

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Javier Téllez: NOSFERATU (The Undead)

'NOSFERATU (The Undead)' is a film installation by Venezuelan born, New York-based artist Javier...

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The Big Anxiety

The Big Anxiety festival brings together artists, scientists and communities to question and re-...

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Debra Porch: Art Should Make Life More Interesting Than Art

The work of Debra Porch explores the potency of memory and its ability to transform the ordinary...

Robert Andrew, 'residual', 2014, concrete, steel, electro-mechanicals and a rock, 120 x 80 x 20cm. Photograph: Sam Scoufos, courtesy the artist
Material Place: Reconsidering Australian Landscapes

'Material Place' gathers artists who are thinking through the materiality of the Australian...

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Rachel O’Reilly: The Gas Imaginary

Using poetry, drawing, film and public lectures, Rachel O'Reilly addresses the install of...

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Gemma Smith: Rhythm Sequence

The first career survey of Australian artist Gemma Smith traces the development of Smith’s...

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Nicholas Aloisio-Shearer: Fragile Fantasy

The work of Nicholas Aloisio-Shearer considers the field of image production surrounding video...

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Order of Events: Elliott Bryce Foulkes & Maria Smit

Multidisciplinary designers Elliott Bryce Foulkes and Maria Smit draw on a collaborative working...

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

This mid-career survey brings together six video works by the collaborative duo, exploring...

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Oliver Beer: Impossible Composition

Oliver Beer’s practice engages with sound, architecture and the memory of objects. 'Impossible...

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Zanny Begg: The Beehive

'The Beehive' is a non-linear experimental documentary exploring the unsolved murder of Sydney...

2018

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Beth Dillon: Been There, Done That

How is the nomadic artist implicated in the promises and paradoxes of global mobility?

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Chelsea Lehmann: The Articulate Surface

Synthesising art conservation imaging practices with painting techniques, Chelsea Lehmann's work...

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David Eastwood: The Posthumous Studio

David Eastwood creatively re-imagines the late painter Francis Bacon’s London-based studio in...

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Kynan Tan: Processing Data

Through digitally-generated visualisation and simulation, this exhibition draws attention to the...

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Make Known: The Exquisite Order of Infinite Variation

Exploring ideas about design thinking and the creative process, across a range of media and...

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Local Colour: Experiments in Nature

'Local Colour' features artists and designers with an interest in sustainable practices, local...

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Christian Thompson: Ritual Intimacy

Christian Thompson works across photography, video, sculpture, performance and sound to explore...

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Enough خلص Khalas: Contemporary Australian Muslim Artists

'Enough خلص Khalas' unapologetically explores the contemporary Australian Muslim experience,...

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Bronwen Williams: In-audibility, In-visibility

Bronwen Williams works with sound and installation to explore the nuances of contemporary Asian-...

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Mollie Rice: Threshold Aligning (Performing Place)

Mollie Rice works across site and studio to explore human spatiality and the contemporary city,...

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Rachel Honnery: The Plastosystem

Rachel Honnery utilises a science-fiction lens to understand the transformative effects of...

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In Your Dreams

The divide between rich and poor is widening, conflict and climate change are forcing people...

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Tell: Contemporary Indigenous Photography

An exploration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life, history and culture through a...

2017

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Group Therapy: Mental Distress in a Digital Age

'Group Therapy' explores connections between mental health and the values, political conditions...

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Snoösphere

'Snoösphere' is an expansive, responsive art installation that you can smell, feel, touch and...

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Monika Behrens: Reimagining 17th-Century Dutch Still Life

This exhibition is a culmination of Monika Behrens’ research into 17th-century Dutch still life...

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Morgan Veness: Mr. Jizolark’s Concrete Data

Working across sculpture, installation and drawing, Morgan Veness is interested in repurposing...

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Paul Ogier: The Prohibited Zone

Paul Ogier works with photography to capture alternative views of Australian landscapes.

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A Working Model of the World

From dioramas to dolls' houses, atomic models to cloud-chambers, mandalas to maquettes, 'A...

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Still In My Mind: Gurindji Location, Experience and Visuality

'Still In My Mind' considers the ongoing impact of the Gurindji Walk-Off, a seminal event in...

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Abdul Abdullah: Terms of Engagement

'Terms of Engagement' brings together recent works by Abdul Abdullah exploring the...

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Penelope Benton: The Icing on the Cake

Penelope Benton’s collaborative practice with her partner Alexandra Clapham explores the...

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EXIT

In an immersive, 360-degree installation, 'EXIT' visually correlates global human migratory...

2016

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Georgia Wallace-Crabbe: The Earth and the Elements

'The Earth and the Elements' is an immersive five-channel film installation from Georgia Wallace...

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John Akomfrah: Vertigo Sea

A poetic meditation on humanity's relationship with the ocean fusing archival material, readings...

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River Journey

Water is the planet’s most precious resource yet its health and profusion is increasingly...

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Troubled Waters

This suite of interdisciplinary projects considers the impact of human activity and climate...

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Deborah Kelly: Scenes from the Death of Books

Deborah Kelly is a Sydney-based artist whose work explores lineages of representation, politics...

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John Lethbridge: Imaging the Void

'Imaging the Void: Making the Invisible Visible' is a series of...

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Russell Lowe: Dark Machines

Russell Lowe is an artist, architect, computer programmer, filmmaker, and motorcycle rider. '...

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The Patient

The Patient examines the embodied experience of the artist as medical patient and the medical...

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Shona Illingworth: Lesions in the Landscape

'Lesions in the Landscape' is an exhibition by Danish-Scottish artist Shona Illingworth,...

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Ink Remix: Contemporary Art from Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong

Contemporary ink art has emerged as one of the most significant and ubiquitous artistic trends...

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Adrian Paci: The Column

An epic video installation by internationally acclaimed Albanian artist Adrian Paci.

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Eva Vermandel: 40 Portraits

London-based photographer Eva Vermandel brings Sydney Festival's history to life with an...

2015

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People Like Us

Exploring the interrelationship between art, technology and the human experience in the 21st...

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The Streets of Papunya

A showcase of artworks from the early, established and emerging artists of Papunya.

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Shelter Union

Shelter Union presents experimental projects by Australian and international artists and...

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We are in Wonder LAND: New Experimental Art from Central Australia

Senior and emerging artists, articulate masterful engagements of their own local art histories...

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Collection+: Shaun Gladwell

Shaun Gladwell's 'Collection+' is an exhibition featuring more than 40 works spanning Shaun...

2014

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Amnesia Lab

'Amnesia Lab' is an ongoing collaborative research project involving artists, writers, and...

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Quo Vadis: The Last Drawing Show

Showing the work of artists who have attempted to reconfigure drawing as a contemporary and...

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Body Image

'Body Image' reveals new, compelling, arts-led modes of visualising complex scientific and...

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Signs of Life

Exhibition and program series exploring relationships between creative expression and...

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Feral Experimental: New Design Thinking

'Feral Experimental' brings together creative practitioners and researchers who explore the...

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The Skullbone Experiment

Artworks from a wilderness residency at Skullbone Plains.

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Seoul – Sydney: Contemporary Korean and Australian Prints

A cultural collaboration between 46 contemporary Korean and Australian artists.

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Conquest of Space: Science Fiction & Contemporary Art

'Conquest of Space' reveals previously unexplored intersections between science fiction (SF) and...

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Edward Burtynsky: Un_Earthed

Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky explores nature transformed through industry.

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Richard Mosse: The Enclave

Richard Mosse documents rebel enclaves and sites of human rights in the eastern Democratic...

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Refiguring Dystopia: Richard Goodwin 1991–2012

This survey exhibition traces Richard Goodwin's career as a sculptor and architect from 1991.

2013

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Making Change

Exhibition marks the 40th anniversary of relations between Australia and China.