Powerhouse has today unveiled A Line, A Web, A World, the first in-depth survey of drawings from the museum’s collection. The new exhibition features 230 drawings by artists, designers, architects, musicians, engineers, scientists, and students. It embraces the democratic nature of drawing as a universal tool for communication and its unique ability to bring imagination and new ideas to life. One of the oldest forms of human expression, this exhibition of rarely seen drawings examines the integral role of drawing across different disciplines and cultures, from historical to new contemporary works, and considers the question of why we draw.

Melbourne will be transformed with art trails, sculptural illuminations and projections, a 360° pop-up dome cinema and a non-stop weekend of gigs, as the City of Melbourne debuts its spectacular new festival, Now or Never.

Now or Never is a 17-day festival in August designed to attract more visitors to Melbourne during a previously quiet period – invigorating the city and boosting the local economy.

The event will bring together more than 300 local and internationally-renowned artists, composers, change makers and innovators – with a vibrant program of events, featuring 18 Australian premieres and 20 festival exclusive commissions.

Bell Shakespeare’s new production of Romeo and Juliet is now showing in Sydney, marking its first full production in the company’s theatre The Neilson Nutshell at Pier 2/3 at Walsh Bay Arts Precinct, showing until 27 August. The play will also tour to Arts Centre Melbourne for a two-week season from 13 – 29 July 2023.

The production gives audiences a closer look at arguably Shakespeare’s most famous play, delving into the intensity and the heartbreak of this evocative tragedy. The story of the young lovers’ chance meeting unfolds against an enchanting starry sky. Their forbidden love leads them down a dangerous path, and they will risk everything to break free of the unending, violent feud between their families.

TarraWarra Museum of Art today announced The Soils Project exhibition, presented from 5 August – 12 November 2023. The Soils Project brings together 13 practitioners and collectives from Australia, the Netherlands and Indonesia to explore the complex and diverse relationships between environmental change and colonisation.

The exhibition is the latest iteration of an ongoing research-based experimental project developed in collaboration with leading contemporary arts museum the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands and Struggles for Sovereignty, a collective based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The Soils Project arises from specific and situated practices that each of the participants and artists brings to their understanding of soil, as both metaphor and matter.

Desart, the peak body for Central Australian Aboriginal Art Centres, today announced that Desert Mob will return to Mparntwe /Alice Springs from Thursday 7 September – Sunday 22 October, 2023. A vibrant statement of contemporary cultural expression, the Desert Mob 2023 exhibition will be co-curated by Hetti Kemarr Perkins (Arrernte and Kalkadoon) and Aspen Nampin Beattie (Luritja, Warumungu and Yawuru) bringing together hundreds of new works by emerging and established artists. For its 32nd edition, Desert Mob 2023 will feature the work of 34 art centres with each art centre selecting the work to be shown. This unique exhibition and related events brings together communities from a geographic area that spans 1.221 million kilometres and sixteen languages.

Sydney Fringe Festival, New South Wales’ largest independent arts festival, today announced the program highlights for 2023. Presented across the city from 1 – 30 September 2023, this year’s Festival marks Kerri Glasscock’s 10th year as Festival Director and CEO, featuring a dynamic program spanning theatre, music, comedy, visual art, film, musical theatre, dance, circus, street festivals, literature and poetry, as well as a precinct takeover at Entertainment Quarter.

Bundanon today announced its major new exhibition season, The Polyphonic Sea, opening on 8 July 2023.

The Polyphonic Sea explores the wealth of languages around us, from speech and writing, gesture, and music, to the flow of the natural environment. Curated by Sophie O’Brien, it showcases recent and new works by twelve leading artists from Aotearoa New Zealand: Antonia Barnett-McIntosh, Andrew Beck, Ruth Buchanan, The Estate of L. Budd, Sione Faletau, Samuel Holloway et al., Sarah Hudson, Sonya Lacey, Nova Paul, Sriwhana Spong, and Shannon Te Ao.

Sydney Contemporary, in partnership with MA Financial Group, today announces its highly anticipated Performance Contemporary program. The seventh edition of Sydney Contemporary returns to Carriageworks with its largest edition to date featuring 95+ emerging and established galleries from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore, from 7 – 10 September 2023.

Performance Contemporary, co-curated by Samantha Watson-Wood and Katie Winten from Friends with Strangers, presents a diverse and dynamic program of experimental and ephemeral performance works by some of Sydney’s most exciting contemporary artists; Amala Groom, Riana Head-Toussaint, Morgan Hogg and Fetu Taku. The four contemporary artists use the body as a medium to engage audiences in ambitious live performances that explore key social, cultural and political ideas.

Powerhouse today announced the Australian premiere of the major exhibition Atmospheric Memory by Mexican Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. Opening 12 August 2023 at Powerhouse Ultimo, the sensory experience will present works that engage audiences with science, maths and climate alongside objects from the Powerhouse Collection.

Commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Atmospheric Memory debuted at their 2019 festival. Atmospheric Memory is a sensory exhibition exploring Babbage’s 1838 theory through cutting-edge technology and new interactive works transforming vibrations in the atmosphere into something visitors can see, hear and even touch. Works include a voice-controlled fountain where spoken words are formed in water vapor hanging momentarily in the air; a corridor of over 3000 different channels of natural and unnatural sounds including over 200 types of insects and 300 types of birds; a voice-controlled light beacon and the world’s first 3D printed speech bubble.

Ngununggula, the Southern Highlands’ first regional art gallery, is set to host the highly anticipated, second annual Midwinter Festival from 23 – 25 June, a site-responsive festival bringing together nationally acclaimed artists, musicians and local producers to celebrate the region for the winter solstice.

The festival is a three day event celebrating the deep chill of the Highlands through light, fire, food, music and storytelling.