With the power to freeze and preserve time, photography has captured imaginations for centuries. This August, step into New Light: Photography Now + Then, an exhibition where past and present converge in a mesmerising display of photography spanning 1890 to 2024.

Immerse yourself in the remarkable tale of amateur Brisbane photographer Alfred Henrie Elliott (1870-1954), whose extraordinary images lay dormant for decades until they were discovered in 1983, stored in cedar cigar boxes beneath a home in Red Hill.

Initially thought to comprise 300 glass-plate negatives and a trusty tailboard camera, the collection’s narrative took an unexpected turn in 2014 with the discovery of an additional cigar box brimming with over 400 film negatives and 92 prints.

Drawing on this treasure trove of an archive, seven contemporary Brisbane photographers will debut exciting new commissions responding to different parts of the Elliott Collection. Brisbane’s photography community have also responded to the archive and a selection of images will be shown in a display titled Viewfinders. By layering their own perspectives, knowledge and experiences onto the collection, the artists will encourage new ways of looking at our past, our present and this place.

Join us in celebrating the ever-inspiring interpretive capacity of photography this August.

New Light: Photography Now + Then Exhibition
17 August 2024 – 13 July 2025
Museum of Brisbane
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au

Brisbane has a strong culture of artists using floral imagery to tell stories of this place. In a space reminiscent of a quintessential Queenslander house, Rearranged: Art of the Flower invites visitors to stroll through a lush collection of paintings, textiles, sculptures, ceramics and new media.

Commonly associated with domestic settings and still life compositions, flowers continue to be reimagined and evoke contemporary concerns. Rearranged beholds the beauty of this ever-popular subject and looks beyond to explore notions of place, memory and history. The exhibition illuminates diverse perspectives, always acknowledging that flowers have long been cared for by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as an integral part of Country.

Journey through the house, out the back and into the garden, and revel in the beautiful blooms of Brisbane.

Artists featured include Christopher Bassi, Ashlee Becks, Keith Burt, Norton Fredericks, John Honeywill, Elisa Jane Carmichael, Vida Lahey, Clairy Laurence, Boneta-Marie Mabo, Margaret Olley, Lyndall Phelps, Julian Podmore, Milomirka Radovic, Sarah Rayner, Edith Rewa, Monica Rohan, Bronwyn Searle, Pamela See (Xue Mei-Ling), Judith Sinnamon, Jaishree Srinivasan, Karen Stone, Man&Wah, Anna Varendorff and Michael Zavros.

Rearranged: Art of the Flower Exhibition
Museum of Brisbane
25 November 2023 – 11 August 2024
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au

From ancient vessels to figurines revealing the daily lives of people from antiquity, ceramics have been integral to cultures worldwide for millennia. Ceramics have stored our most precious resources, have been vehicles for knowledge and traditions, and passed between generations as heirlooms.

Clay: Collected Ceramics is a celebration of ceramics from two collections: Museum of Brisbane’s and Kylie Johnson’s. It is accompanied by Commune, a display of single pieces contributed by more than 300 makers responding to MoB’s largest community callout to date.

With pieces spanning 60 years of creativity, including fresh works never before displayed, Clay sparks a conversation about the relationship between potters and their visions. From functional wares of the 1970s to conceptual creations by iconoclastic makers of today, this exhibition will speak of the meaningful processes of making and collecting.

The many highlights of Clay include a bold grouping selected from the MoB Collection to represent the many shades of brown, featuring works by ten renowned makers including Carl McConnell, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Milton Moon, Lyndal Moor and Kevin Grealy. In stunning contrast are newly commissioned and acquired pieces by diverse contemporary makers Bonnie Hislop, Nicolette Johnson, Jane du Rand, Kenji Uranishi and Steph Woods. Flowing throughout is an evolving performative installation by Artist in Residence Jody Rallah. A generous array of objects gleaned from years of collecting speaks of the life of Kylie Johnson, author, poet, traveller and founder of Brisbane treasure-trove, paper boat press. A film commissioned for the exhibition insinuates the viewer into intimate spaces of ceramics themselves. Woven throughout are many makers’ ruminations on how they lost their hearts to this most elementary, seductive material.

Slip into an exhibition that turns the wheel on how we perceive Clay.

Clay: Collected Ceramics Exhibition
Museum of Brisbane
13 May – 22 October 2023
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au

A celebration of sensory practice, Play Moves is a multi-generational exhibition that champions curiosity, creativity and the sheer joy of fun. For the first time in what feels like an age, this exhibition invites audiences to touch, move, explore and play like a child in a series of interactive art experiences that come alive when you engage with them.

From high sensory experiences, to low sensory journeys, this exhibition invites you to tailor your own adventure to suit your needs. Love to make mischief? Step into an 80s office full of dancing pot plants and secret interactions courtesy of Counterpilot, create a cacophony of curiosity with Tara Pattenden’s zany tentacle orchestra, or shake and move your way through a cloud of pixels with Sai Karlen’s interactive digital projections.

Prefer to take it slow? Help us weave a tapestry of creative collaboration with Slow Art Collective’s giant loom, build a temple of serenity with UnitePlayPerform’s installation of coloured totems or simply sink into the comfort of Michelle Vine’s affirming and serene artworks.

Want to be the first to explore Play Moves? Stay Up Late with MoB on Friday 9 December and join them for art-after-dark party to kick off the show. It’s good to play this summer!

Play Moves
Museum of Brisbane
9 December 2022 – 16 April 2023
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au

For four generations, the McKinney family name has been synonymous with luxury jewels. However, it is Margot herself who has elevated that name to soaring new heights through her own jewellery brand, and flagship store in Brisbane. With a practice that is rooted deeply in nurturing long-term relationships with suppliers, Margot has worked with leading pearl farmers, opal experts, and gem-cutters across the globe to secure the rare and precious materials that have been the centrepiece of her designs. The one-of-a-kind pieces are coveted by an international clientele and stocked by the prestigious Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman stores in the USA. The exhibition unearths stories about Margot’s illustrious career and the miracles of nature that make up her designs.

From the coral reef in our own backyard to the rich palette of colours found on safari in Tanzania, this exhibition will be a mesmerising celebration of the complex and profoundly beautiful environments and materials that have inspired her designs. Here you’ll find opulent opals, lustrous pearls and rare gems like the intensely blue tanzanite, lilac amethyst and pink tourmalines.

World of Wonder is the fourth exhibition in MoB’s identity series that celebrates creative greats who call Brisbane home, including Mao’s Last Dancer the Exhibition: A Portrait of Li Cunxin, a spotlight on designers Pamela Easton and Lydia Pearson for Pattern & Print: Easton Pearson Archive, and High Rotation – an exhibition celebrating over 100 musicians over the last three decades. Join us as we journey through a treasure trove of memories and mastery and let Margot’s designs and inspiration transport you to a world of wonder.

World of Wonder: Margot McKinney Exhibition
18 June – 6 November 2022
Muesum of Brisbane, Brisbane
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au

Throughout her 2017 Q ANZAC 100 Fellowship at the State Library of Queensland, Greer researched the experience of soldiers and servicepeople during the First World War. Accessing photographs, letters and diaries from the library archive allowed Greer to develop a deeper insight into the lives of Queensland soldiers, reverends and other wartime workers. Greer continues to translate these stories into her artworks today.

This series encourages us to remember and reflect upon the profound effect of war on soldiers and service people.

Artworks by Greer Townshend will be on display at Museum of Brisbane in the Adelaide Street Gallery.

Here I Came to the Very Edge 2020 Exhibition
Museum of Brisbane
11 November 2020 – 31 January 2021
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au

CELESTON 2 extends on a video work Man & Wah developed during Museum of Brisbane’s Artists @ Home residency program, during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. It is a curated amalgamation of audio, video and photographic material centred on the cosmic and botanical worlds, drawn from the artists’ extensive catalogue created over the past seven years.

The work was informed by Man & Wah’s attempt to make sense of the unfolding global events and the mass flow of information that accompanied them. It examines how the past and present can mould ideas, beliefs and social structures, and how digital information is controlled to induce human reactions.

Man & Wah: CELESTON 2 Exhibition
9 September 2020 – 31 January 2021
Museum of Brisbane
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au

The exhibition presents a snapshot of the art, personal stories and enduring legacies of Brisbane’s most significant and ground-breaking women artists between 1920-2019 reflected in painting, photography, sculpture, performance and installation works on a scale never before seen.

Featuring artworks from more than 80 artists following each decade from Brisbane’s decreasing isolation, the introduction of new ideas of modernism and abstraction to internationally regarded contemporary works in a range of media. Brisbane’s unique geographic location has always provided its own idiosyncrasies due to its climate and distance from major world cultural centres and so necessitated a resourceful and close-knit arts community that fostered teachers, advocates and leaders in their fields, leaving in their wake a strong legacy for future generations.

Artists featured include Tracey Moffatt, Margaret Cilento, Gwendolyn Grant, Carol McGregor, Olive Ashworth, Judy Watson, Fiona Foley, Pamela See, Jay Younger, Davida Allen, James Barth, Megan Cope, Sancintya Mohini Simpson, Naomi Blacklock, Courtney Coombs, Emma Coulter, Rachael Haynes and Elisa Jane Carmichael.

New Woman Exhibition
13 September 2019 – 15 March 2020
Museum of Brisbane
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au

For the first major exhibition from Museum of Brisbane’s Easton Pearson Archive, we worked together with Pam and Lydia to select the designs they felt highlighted the greatest innovations of their design practice and to share the stories behind the evolution of each garment: the design process, techniques, collaborations, experimentation’s, successes and set-backs.

The garments will be showcased on more than 60 forms in Gallery One, alongside accessories, look books, sketches and range plans.

Slow fashion, sustainability, design practice and experimental future fashion will also form the basis of the exhibition’s public programs to begin in December.

The Designers’ Guide: Easton Pearson Archive
23 November 2018 – 22 April 2019
Museum of Brisbane
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au

It also irrevocably changed the life of the Aboriginal peoples on whose Country the colony was built.

This exhibition offers a rare chance to view some of the few remaining official documents from the Brisbane penal colony.

Presented in partnership with Queensland State Archives, these priceless pieces comprise: 5 hand-written registers from 1824-1842 that detail rations and harvests, illnesses and death,  employment and transgressions; the original architectural plans and maps, many prepared by convict George Browne, that show the footprint of the penal settlement prior to the reopening of Brisbane Town as a free settlement in 1842; and the Book of Trials which logs the crimes and punishments meted out within the settlement.

These historically significant documents are listed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.

Life in Irons will feature an extensive MoB Learn program, children’s activities, public programs, tours of the Queensland State Archives and performances.

Life in Irons: Brisbane’s Convict Stories Exhibition
18 May 2018 – 28 Oct 2018
10am – 5pm, daily, 10am-7pm Friday
www.museumofbrisbane.com.au