TarraWarra Museum of Art announces its 2026-27 program
Light Weight, Russell Drysdale, Evening, 1945. TarraWarra Museum of Art Collection, Gift of Eva Besen AO and Marc Besen AC, Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2013. Photo © Andrew Curtis.
HEALESVILLE.—
TarraWarra Museum of Art today announces its 2026–27 program, bringing together major exhibitions, new commissions, live music and expanded opportunities to experience the Museum and its Collection.
Opening in September 2026, Waterways presents a new rehang of the Collection in the Eva and Marc Besen Centre, accompanied by exclusive Behind the Glass tours. In November 2026, Light Weight explores the material and poetic qualities of light through works from the Collection, a major site-responsive commission and loans from leading Australian contemporary artists.
In Autumn 2027, TarraWarra International returns with Under the Same Sky, a major joint exhibition developed with the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation at CSMVS, Mumbai, and presented across Australia and India. The tenth TarraWarra Biennial, This Hand of Mine, curated by Dr Mikala Tai, follows in July 2027.
Music also moves through the year ahead. The Museum’s inaugural composer-in-residence begins work in partnership with the Australian Art Orchestra, culminating in a world premiere at TarraWarra Live in November 2026. The Australian Chamber Orchestra returns to the Yarra Valley in February 2027 for two days of music, art and conversation at the TarraWarra Festival.
TarraWarra Museum of Art Director, Dr Victoria Lynn, says: “The year ahead brings art, music, and conversation together in a series of original exhibitions, a renewed Collection display, and extraordinary performances in and around the Museum and its grounds.”
AT A GLANCE:
• Behind the Glass: Waterways | From 5 September 2026 | Curated by Emma Nixon
• Light Weight | 28 November 2026 – 28 February 2027 | Curated by Dr Emily Cormac
• TarraWarra International 2027: Under the Same Sky | 20 March – 11 July 2027 | Curated by Dr Victoria Lynn & Puja Vaish
• TarraWarra Biennial 2027: This Hand of Mine | 31 July – 21 November 2027 | Curated by Dr Mikala Tai
• TarraWarra Live featuring the Australian Art Orchestra | 29 November 2026
• TarraWarra Festival featuring the Australian Chamber Orchestra | 27–28 February 2027
Behind the Glass: Waterways
From 5 September 2026 | Visible Art Storage, Eva and Marc Besen Centre
Curated by Emma Nixon
In Wurundjeri Woiwurrung language, Tarrawarra translates approximately as ‘slow moving waters’. The new rehang of the Visible Art Storage in the Eva and Marc Besen Centre, Waterways, invites us to explore how Australian artists have depicted and evoked water since 1945 in the TarraWarra Museum of Art Collection.
Light Weight
28 November 2026 – 28 February 2027 | Museum
Curated by Dr Emily Cormack
An exhibition that reveals the transformative power of light, where the physical and poetic converge to shape our understanding of the world.
This playful Summer exhibition explores the materiality and poetry of light, experimenting with light’s metaphorical and symbolic qualities, as well as its material and physical properties. Exploring light’s ability to elucidate and enlighten, make visible and splinter into a colour spectrum, the exhibition conjures poetic, generative and structural aspects of light, bridging the worlds of poetry and physics and informing how we perceive and exist in the world.
Featured artists: Rick Amor, Clarice Beckett, Lynne Boyd, Arthur Boyd, Andrew Browne, Jon Cattapan, Danica Chappell, Ray Crooke, Russell Drysdale, Jeremy Eaton, Dale Frank, Mark Galea, Rosalie Gascoigne, Louise Hearman, Robert Hunter, Natasha Johns-Messenger, Len Lye, Taree Mackenzie, Tim Maguire, Hilarie Mais, Ross Manning, Godfrey Miller, Callum Morton, John Olsen, John Passmore, Lloyd Rees, Tim Storrier, Albert Tucker, Brett Whiteley, Fred Williams, Philip Wolfhagen.
Tarrawarra International 2027: Under the Same Sky
20 March – 11 July 2027, TarraWarra Museum of Art
3 September 2027 – 16 January 2028, Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, CSMVS, Mumbai
Curated by Dr Victoria Lynn and Puja Vaish
A shared attentiveness to complexity, diversity and contradiction in the contemporary world.
In a world always in motion, lived realities exceed narrow associations with geography. Under the Same Sky is a joint exhibition by TarraWarra Museum of Art, Australia, as part of the TarraWarra International 2027 series, and the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS Museum), Mumbai. The artists live and work on Boonwurrung, Wurundjeri and Kamilaroi Country, Odisha, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Athurugiriya, Dhaka, Sydney, Melbourne and Berlin. Together, their works consider how we might understand the contemporary world – not through fixed ideas of origin, nationality or region, but through the connections, histories and conditions that shape how we live and share it. Under the Same Sky traces unexpected transcultural connections and tensions, making visible what mainstream imaginings of the world often leave out.
The exhibition is co-curated by Dr Victoria Lynn, Director of TarraWarra Museum of Art, and Puja Vaish, Director of the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF), Mumbai. Following its presentation at TarraWarra Museum of Art, a second iteration will be presented in Mumbai from 3 September 2027 to 16 January 2028.
The project also benefits from the expertise of Anindita Banerjee, a regional Victorian-based performance artist and curator specialising in community participation. Banerjee will curate a lively program of interdisciplinary and interactive events designed to deepen engagement with local and diasporic audiences, expanding inclusion, equity and representation across the project.
Artists include: Khadim Ali, Sarnath Banerjee, Anju Dodiya, Gauri Gill, Simryn Gill, Shilpa Gupta, Sohrab Hura, Kirtika Kain, Yardena Kurulkar, Lavanya Mani, Brian Martin with Srinivas Gomango and Deeptimayee Patro, Amol Patil, Sangeeta Sandrasegar, Varunika Saraf, Mithu Sen, Hema Shironi and Munem Wasif.
Tarrawarra Biennial 2027 | 10th Edition: This Hand of Mine
31 July – 14 November 2027 | Curated by Dr Mikala Tai
“Who is moving / This hand of mine?” – Kanjiro Kawai
There is a moment in the artistic process when everything stills; when the mind and body lock together and move with an intuitive rhythm, and the work appears as if manifested. It sometimes happens in the dead of night, or in an intense few hours that collapse into seeming minutes. In these moments, the act of making shifts from conscious thought to instinct, where an imperceptible alchemy seems to take hold. Curated by Dr Mikala Tai and marking its tenth edition, TarraWarra Biennial 2027: This Hand of Mine dwells in this moment, asking what spectral forces are at play. The exhibition brings together artists who, collectively, propose the gallery as a site of blessing.
