A new art experience transforms Ballarat's historic Mining Exchange with colour, community and playful exploration.
Ballarat welcomes a major new art experience this month, as Sunnyside takes over the city’s historic spaces. Award-winning creative studio The Social Crew presents the inaugural edition, centred around UK artist Morag Myerscough’s first large-scale Australian installation.
Myerscough’s centerpiece work Chasing Sunbeams fills the Mining Exchange with her characteristic vibrant colours and bold patterns, turning the heritage building into an immersive visual playground.
Running until 23 November, Sunnyside extends beyond the main venue into surrounding laneways and tucked-away spaces, offering free access to installations, artist discussions and hands-on creative sessions.
Sunnyside – Ballarat
- Friday, 7 November to Saturday, 23 November 2025
- Mining Exchange and surrounding laneways, Ballarat
- Free entry to external public areas and a talk from Myerscough, entry to the installation book here
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Local involvement sits at the heart of the program. Ballarat musician and composer Raul Sanchez i Jorge created a custom soundscape for the main installation, blending musical elements with recordings captured around the city and contributions from community workshops, creating an evolving audio layer throughout the space.
Hop Lane receives its own transformation through Karndorr (Tracks), a textile installation born from Belonging workshops. Wadawurrung Traditional Owner and Aboriginal artist Jenna Oldaker from Murrup Art led these sessions alongside Myerscough, resulting in new town flags that reflect Wadawurrung sky Country; its shifting colours, life-giving properties and the guidance of Ancestral spirits watching from above. The laneway becomes a vivid textile environment.
Myerscough finds resonance between Ballarat and other post-industrial cities she’s transformed through her practice. She recognises a quiet determination in the city and an appetite for colour and connection that aligns with her artistic values. Sunnyside deliberately invites all ages to engage with unexpected ideas and bold creative thinking.
Additional programming spotlights regional talent. Ballarat artists Siobhan Finn and Tegan Crosbie present Fontella The Zine Machine, while Pauline O’Shannesy-Dowling runs textile workshops. Carly Pitts, known as Pittywitty, leads interactive sessions throughout the three-week run.
By situating Myerscough’s international contemporary practice within the Mining Exchange’s historic architecture and connecting it to local artists and Wadawurrung cultural knowledge, Sunnyside creates a dialogue between different creative approaches and timescales. The surrounding lanes become extensions of this conversation, with community-created textile work adding layers of local narrative to the broader artistic vision.
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