Melbourne Sculpture Biennale is back for round two: bigger, longer and still completely free.
Melbourne Sculpture Biennale returns this October, cramming 20 contemporary artists into a grand Brighton mansion for three weeks.
Titled Soft Systems, the second edition of Melbourne Sculpture Biennale lands at the heritage-listed Billilla Mansion in Brighton, the first time the free exhibition has called the old villa home. The 2026 outing is a bigger beast than the 2024 debut, stretching to three weeks and loading up on extra public programs, artist talks and special events.
Melbourne Sculpture Biennale 2026: Soft Systems
- 8–25 October 2026
- Billilla Mansion, 26 Halifax Street, Brighton
- Open 11am–5pm, Thursday to Sunday
- Free entry
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Names on the bill include Mikala Dwyer, Lauren Berkowitz, Paul Yore, Hannah Gartside, Jenna Mayilema Lee and Nabilah Nordin, alongside 14 others, each making fresh work in response to the specific site and context of Billilla.
Soft Systems digs into the tangled systems shaping contemporary life, from the environmental to the social to the technological. Each artist has built site-responsive work for Billilla, prodding at how those forces land on people, culture and the environment, and treating the mansion itself as both backdrop and subject. It’s a long way from sculpture as marble figures standing politely on plinths.
The venue is a large part of the appeal. Billilla started life as a Victorian villa in the late 1800s before the Weatherly family reshaped it in the early 1900s into a showpiece of Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau design. It was the family home for more than 80 years and a hub of Brighton’s social life, until Brighton Council bought it in 1973 for public use. Plenty of the original heritage detailing survives.
The full slate of public programs are now live. Entry is free the whole way through, so a wander around the grounds and galleries won’t cost a cent.
For more information, head here.
