The Outer Space 2025 program promises a vibrant showcase of contemporary art from across Australia. Following an impressive response to last year’s open call, with over 120 submissions, eight outstanding projects were carefully selected for the Main Gallery. These works reflect the incredible talent, vision, and creativity of both emerging and mid-career artists.
The 2025 program combines open call submissions with specially invited projects, creating a dynamic exploration of perspectives, mediums, and practices. Visitors can expect cutting-edge exhibitions featuring immersive installations, digital media, painting, sculpture, and interdisciplinary works. Themes such as identity, environmental sustainability, cultural heritage, and the evolving relationship between art and technology will take center stage.
This carefully curated program offers a year-long celebration of innovation and dialogue, highlighting the richness of contemporary Australian art. The 2025 Main Exhibition Program will feature:
Amy Sargeant (Meanjin/Brisbane) and Arianna Nixon (Meanjin/Brisbane) present
Climate of Violence: Lamentum
7-Feb – 15-Mar 2025
The dust has barely settled. A sacred tether becomes strained and defiled. Screams become whispers in the fog of war & the breath of a coming storm runs down your neck.
The latest exploration in sound and vision by Amy and Arianna.
Sam Harrison (Kamilaroi and Wiradjuri)
Fair Dinkies
21-Mar – 19-Apr 2025
Snowy River Toy Inc. is pleased to present its newest line of toy collectables. Celebrate Australia’s rich cultural diversity! Fair Dinkies parodies the social and cultural functions that we refer to as ‘the great mixing pot’ of Australia. The collection explores the relationship and tensions between authentic expression of cultural identity and the strict Eurocentric cultural contract that individuals must conform to be considered a True-Blue Aussie.
Dean Ansell (Meanjin/Brisbane) presents
The Riḡorabana, The Balawaia
25-Apr – 24-May 2025
The Riḡorabana, The Balawaia is an immersive exhibition born from years of research into the artist’s Melanesian heritage. Weaving together familial storytelling, fieldwork, and cultural practices from Papua Niugini, the project interprets a local mythology surrounding caves deep within the sacred mountain, Lamana Golo, where sorcerers are initiated. Through soundscape, video projection, and embodied performance, a story of the Riḡorabana and Balawaian is told.
Celine Cheung (Wallumedegal /Sydney), Rainer Ciar (Dharug/Sydney), Kalanjay Dhir (Dharug/Sydney) & Fei Gao (Dharug/Sydney) present
Ghost in the Machine
30-May – 28-Jun 2025
Ghost in the Machine explores how fiction, anthropomorphisation, and avatars may reflect psychological realities. Interested in memories, spirits, and digital cultures while acknowledging the material impacts and weight they hold, the artists create characters and alternate personas through costume, fanwork paraphernalia and puppetry.
Arabella Walker (Wulli Wulli) presents
Auburn
4-Jul – 2-Aug 2025
The exhibition titled Auburn will offer an immersive exploration of landscapes, colours, and textures significant to Auburn Station, situated on Wulli Wulli Country. As a multidisciplinary presentation, Auburn will blend painting with projection on both opaque and translucent surfaces, creating a layered experience that honours the deep cultural connection my family has with Auburn Station. Auburn Station is central to the stories and heritage of my family, embodying a profound legacy that I aim to convey through this exhibition. My goal is to celebrate and share the beauty and significance of this unique pocket of Country, illustrating the power of connection to land and the memories it holds. Visitors will be immersed in a space that visually and emotionally transports them to Auburn Station. The exhibition will feature large-scale works, which include projections of Auburn Station and abstract representations, as well as smaller, intimate artworks allowing for close examination. By projecting onto all surfaces—including the ceiling and floor—the installation will create an overwhelming sense of immersion, mirroring the intense experience of stepping onto Country for the first time.
Allison Chhorn (Tarntanya/Adelaide) presents
Reflections in the Water
8-Aug – 6-Sep 2025
“Reflections in the Water” explores the intergenerational process of remembering through fragments of recreated archival material depicting the Cambodian countryside along the Mekong River. The immersive installation becomes a water sanctuary, highlighting the equally healing and destructive nature of this essential element in the tropical climate of Cambodia.
Ellamay Khongroj Fitzgerald (Yugambeh / Gold Coast)
A Seat At The โต๊ะ
12-Sep – 11-Oct 2025
A Seat At The โต๊ะ” explores food as a living archive, a vessel through which identity, heritage, and culture are continually shaped and redefined within the Asian diaspora. Central to this work are the stories of six Asian Australian participants, all of whom currently live or grew up in Southeast Queensland. These personal histories reveal how cultural and ancestral connections are actively nurtured and transformed through the simple act of sharing a meal.
Rae Haynes (Meanjin/Brisbane) presents
Subversive Threads
17-Oct – 22-Nov 2025
‘Subversive Threads’ is an exhibition of new works that examine genealogical, personal and political connections to the innovative British textile maker and educator Mary Linwood (1755-1845) through multiple modes of feminist investigation, drawing from archival research, auto-theoretical approaches to storytelling and participatory workshops in the gallery.
