Healesville, Wurundjeri Country, Monday 9 March: TarraWarra Museum of Art announces a series of public programs to accompany the upcoming exhibition TarraWarra International 2026: System Release, curated by Dr Emily Cormack, including live performances, artist talks and workshops.
TarraWarra International 2026: System Release brings together ten artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia and Mexico who reach into the chaos of global precarity to create new systems of order across a wide range of media. The exhibition proposes a different understanding of order as a kind of friendship with chaos, presenting personal and collective strategies for making sense of a rapidly changing world.
System Release is accompanied by a dynamic series of public programs, including artist talks, workshops and a day of music exploring the relationship between structure and spontaneity as a way of thinking about order and chaos in sound.
On Saturday, 21 March 2026, join Curator of System Release, Emily Cormack, in conversation with artists, Nikau Hindin (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi and Ngāi Tūpoto), Shannon Te Ao (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Wairangi, Te Pāpaka-a-Māui), Alicia Frankovich and Francis Carmody as they reflect on their practices and the ideas underpinning the exhibition. Hear firsthand how each artist approaches material, knowledge and form in response to the exhibition’s themes.
On Thursday, 9 April 2026, children can explore traditional Māori kite (manu tukutuku) making practices and construct their own kite designs inspired by Nikau Hindin (Te Rarawa/Ngāpuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand), whose Māori manu aute (bark-cloth kites) feature in System Release.
Māori manu aute is an Indigenous technology used for navigation, communication and divination. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the cultural and creative contexts of kite-making before working through a hands-on process of drawing, designing and constructing their own kite forms. The workshop focuses on cultural storytelling and symbolism, construction and basic design principles, visual language drawn from the natural environment, and the use of symbols, rectilinear shapes, geometry, pattern and colour. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their relationships with nature and place, translating these ideas into visual form through their designs. Each child will create a kite to take home and enjoy.
On Saturday, 11 April 2026, join multi-instrumentalist and composer Rosie Westbrook for a live performance featuring a remarkable ensemble of eight musicians, each a distinctive musical voice in their own right. Curated by Rosie Westbrook, this collaborative event explores the space between structure and spontaneity, presenting new improvised works alongside reinterpreted compositions inspired by the ideas and artistic expressions within the exhibition System Release.
On Sunday, 26 April 2026, join BLAK Environment collective for an afternoon of workshops and conversation. Produced by leading Indigenous architect Bradley Kerr, this event explores the question: “What would the built BLAK environment look like if we allow First Nations design knowledge to lead, rather than supplement, the design process? Participants will be invited to participate in workshops centred around a series of carved, etched or patinated objects, where the co-design model is inverted, and participation becomes an act of expression, carving and material understanding. The workshops sit alongside conversations exploring how power, authorship and opportunity might flow differently through the act of making.
To accompany the exhibition, a comprehensive System Release illustrated catalogue will be published. This full-colour, 100-page publication will feature images and documentation of works by each artist in the exhibition, with a foreword by TarraWarra Museum of Art Director Dr Victoria Lynn and essays by Dr Emily Cormack, Dr Lana Lopesi, and Stan Grant.
