Exhibitions

Shireen Taweel: Switching Codes

7 November 2020 – 13 February 2021

Through a new body of work, Shireen Taweel questions the evolution of code-switching in a multilingual society, unpacking the ongoing Arab, French and English cultural practices in Lebanon, and its influence on the shared Lebanese cultural identity in Australia and Lebanon.

Switching Codes is a collection of copper sound sculptures and engraved copper tablets expressing the desire for new beginnings that unify the future evolution of language and culture.

 Image by Document Photography

Fairfield's Finest Drop

29 February - 21 November 2020

Fairfield's Finest Drop explores a unique period in Fairfield's history when European migrants established vineyards in the area, producing some of Sydney's first and finest wines. From the large commercial vineyards of the late 19th century to families pressing grapes in their backyards today, this exhibition celebrates local winemakers past and present. 

Image by Silversalt Photography

Take a virtual tour of Fairfield's Finest Drop

14 March – 24 October 2020

SOLASTALGIA: Mawa Ngurra is a response by Aboriginal artists to the reality of climate change and its impact on the Australian landscape, community and our connection to country. It acknowledges the unique spiritual connection of First Nations People to this land, and is a powerful and thought provoking insight into this often highly emotive topic.

Artists Blak Douglas, Gordon Hookey, Leanne Tobin, Victoria Woods, Jason Douglas, Trevor Eastwood, Leanne Watson and Rhiannon Wright present new work exploring their cultural and personal perspective on this globally relevant issue.

Image by On Jackson Street Photography

Take a virtual tour of SOLASTALGIA

Kuli

14 March – 25 July 2020

Kuli, meaning skin in Fijian, is an exploration of the transference of intergenerational knowledge in Oceanic cultures challenging the western concept of time. Emele Ugavule will present photography and woven articles from the Tokelau community to accompany pieces created by artists from neighbouring Oceanic communities.

Image by On Jackson Street Photography

RITUALS by CuriousWorks

7 December 2019 - 29 February 2020

RITUALS celebrates the glorious diversity of life in South West Sydney, featuring two projects from the CuriousWorks archives: Ritual - a large scale, multi-channel audio-visual projection work; and Meet Eat - a documentary series of short films celebrating people, connection and the sharing of food. 

CuriousWorks is a unique community arts and media organisation that identifies, nurtures and builds the next generation of storytellers, artists and media makers from western Sydney. 

2019 Artist in Residence Tracey Clement: FUTURAMA 2.0

26 October 2019 - 29 February 2020  

Image: Futurama 2.0, photograph by Rebecca Shanahan

Tracey Clement presents her solo show FUTURAMA 2.0, a utopian vision in which everyone has a chance to make their mark on the city.

Treasures from Home

24 August 2019 - 15 February 2020

Image: Suzanne and Bounkeo Sivieng, photograph by Michelle Chanique

Treasures from Home showcases personal belongings brought to Australia by individuals who migrated or sought refuge here. These treasured keepsakes speak of a different life, a different time, connecting people to a place they once called home.

Amani Haydar: The mother wound

24 August - 23 November 2019

Image: Amani Haydar with her portrait, courtesy of AGNSW, photograph by Jason McCormack

Western Sydney based artist and Archibald Prize finalist (2018) Amani Haydar presents a deeply personal and moving series of works, sharing a vulnerable and oftentimes intimate glimpse into her unique perspective of life, having growing up in an Arab-Australian household, as a women’s advocate and as a witness to  family and domestic violence.

In Conversation

13 July – 12 October 2019

In Conversation presents a new body of work by Australian-Indonesian artist Ida Lawrence alongside the seminal work, Writing in the Rain, 2011 by acclaimed Indonesian artist FX Harsono. Created in Indonesia and influenced by regular discussions with Harsono, Lawrence's new work considers storytelling and knowlege sharing, demonstrating how these acts shape us individually and collectively.

The Gatherer

6 April – 10 August 2019

Kim Siew's intriguing solo exhibition 'The Gatherer' explores themes of memory, place and connection through engaging interactive zines, murals and audio.

Busy Hands - the devil’s in the details

29 June – 10 August 2019

Guest curator and local artist, Linda Brescia, delved into FCMG’s textile collection to select the finest examples of female handicraft. Doilies, hats, lace collars and a nineteenth century dress and quilt are amongst the works on display; all the result of a pair of busy hands.

This exhibition honours generations of women who devoted their time, attention and skill to create intricate details in everyday items.

Stomping Ground

1 March – 29 June 2019

Stomping Ground features artists Rosell Flatley, Justine Youssef and Linda Brescia, showcasing a collection of works that define their experiences as women from different cultural backgrounds (Filipino, Lebanese and Italian-Egyptian respectively) who live in or come from Western Sydney. 

Word Evolution

4 August 2018 - 22 June 2019

School life has changed dramatically since the late 1800s when Smithfield’s earliest schools opened. Word Evolution presents a brief visual history of local schools in Fairfield and traces the dramatic changes that have taken place. Discover how children communicate and use language; how we send messages and create meaning through visual and spoken language in this rapid-changing world.

South Sudanese Women's Project

10 November 2018 - 23 March 2019

Explore works created by South Sudanese women living and working in Western Sydney highlighting the positive impacts creative arts practices have on wellbeing. This program has been created in partnership with the South Sudanese Community, UNSW and I.C.E.(Information & Cultural Exchange).

Lest We Forget: 100 years of Remembrance Day 1918 - 2018

10 November 2018 - 23 March 2019

Lest we forget: 100 years of Remembrance Day 1918 - 2018 is a commemorative exhibition that examines the impact WWI had on the Fairfield community; including personal stories, objects from the FCMG collection and a beautiful poppy display. 

Linda Brescia: Holding up the Sky

24 November 2018 - 16 February 2019

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery’s 2017/18 Artist in Residence, Linda Brescia showcases stocking portraits and fabric paintings which are a metaphor for the different personas imposed on women by society. The collection’s hero piece, which the exhibition is aptly named after, is a giant installation made up of 681 meticulously woven domestic cleaning cloths suspended from the ceiling.

Foundation

4 August – 17 November 2018

Foundation is a group exhibition curated by Emily McDaniel that responds, reflects or articulates the relationship to origin, groundwork or establishment (both material and immaterial) upon which place is created. In a colonialised place it is also a term that encapsulates the ‘found’ or ‘discovered’ in relation to the farce British claim that declared Australia to be a Terra Nullius state. This exhibition acknowledges the immeasurable histories of First Peoples and their relationship to country. Present artworks that use found materials to articulate a relationship to place and origin. The exhibition will be a collection of sculptural and installation forms by artists Gunybi Ganambarr, Daniele Hromek, Lorraine Connelly Northey, Archie Moore, Megan Cope and Robert Fielding that utilise found materials that suggest development, industrialisation and urbanised expansion. These materials are of symbolic quality and imbued with an essence of the place they were collected from. 

Marian Abboud: Sister Sister Sister Sister ( Brother) Sister

4 August – 27 October 2018

Marian Abboud is a Western Sydney artist who engages with community and audiences to explore our perceptions of identity, cultural frameworks, family dynamics and social constructs. Incorporating photography, video and performance actions, she draws upon her expeirence of living across two cultural identities. In Sister Sister Sister Sister ( Brother) Sister, the viewer is invitied to reflect on the complexities of cultural heritage and loss of language to challenge pre-conceived ideas and immerse ourselves in the experiences of the other. 

Matt Huynh

24 February – 21 July 2018

New York based graphic artist and illustrator Matt Huynh continually pushes the boundaries in his artistic pursuits as he explores themes of war, refugees, the Vietnamese diaspora and the Cabramatta and Chinatown communities.

Growing up in the Fairfield local area, the exhibition takes a reflective look at just a portion of his extraordinary body of work; delving into his inspirations and processes as an artist through the display of development work including mock-up comic books, mood boards, process notes and storyboard index cards.

The exhibition features many of Matt Huynh’s acclaimed graphic works such as The Boat, an interactive graphic comic adaptation of Nam Le’s short story tracing the collective trauma of the Vietnamese diaspora, and his graphic novel CAB, a series of short comics based on true stories from Cabramatta. MA is a comic book about the refugees arriving at a Malaysian refugee camp after the fall of Saigon and The Ark, an animated adaptation of prologue to Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, developed for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Centre. 

Child's Play

14 April - 21 July 2018

Child’s Play draws upon Fairfield City Museum & Gallery’s historical toy collection spanning the twentieth century to contemporary. The exhibition explores concepts of childhood, play and imagination, including contemporary bodies of work developed by children from the local area in partnership with LOST IN BOOKS and Fairfield City’s Early Learning Centres. 

Fort Thunder: An Electro-Acoustic Playground

14 April - 21 July 2018

In Fort Thunder: An Electro-Acoustic Playground, artists Lucas Abela and Keg de Souza use the language of children’s playgrounds to create immersive kaleidoscopic instruments designed with little hands and feet in mind.

Fairfield on Film

25 November 2017 – 31 March 2018

Fairfield on Film explores the evolution of the film sector in Fairfield. Tracing the emergence of early picture palaces and theatres as places for entertainment; in contrast with the modern burgeoning film sector reflective of our society and providing a positive and creative outlet for youth to tell stories from their own perspective. The exhibition features archival photographs, objects from the museum collection and recordings of interviews with local filmmakers and behind-the-scenes films, working in conjunction with a range of community members and organisations.

Tomorrows - Yesterdays, Yesterdays – Tomorrows
Featuring work by Miguel Olmo

3 February – 31 March 2017

This exhibition by Spanish/Australian and Western Sydney artist Miguel Olmo, explores our understanding and relationship to time through a series of sculptural and photographic works. In his practice, Miguel employs a range of media including video, digital imagery, installation, sculpture, photography and sound and specifically for this exhibition the featured works blend influences found in graffiti, street art and constructivism with a strong conceptual framework. Tomorrows – Yesterdays/ Yesterdays - Tomorrows reflects his interest in ephemerality, time and memory; past and present.

Around the Time

25 November 2017 – 10 February 2018

Around the time is an installation of material constellations, kinetic models and modest earthbound monuments to cosmic scale. Arranged as a miniature panorama of prop-like objects, the work responds to the idea of the museum as a site and space for temporal speculation. Working across sculpture, collage, video art and model-based installation, Lisa Sammut seeks to gain a tangible sense of cosmic time, distance and scale through spatial situations and material production.
This project has benefited from an Art & Design Grant courtesy of Arc @ UNSW Limited

Diaspora

23 September 2017 – 6 January 2018

Artist in Residence, Loribelle Spirovski, has spent the year working with individuals who reside in the Fairfield LGA, creating photo-realistic portraiture work.

Diaspora reveals to gallery visitors the stunning fruits of her labour, encouraging us to reflect on Fairfield City as a shared home. 

We Are All Affected

21 September 2017 – 11 November 2017

Co-curated by Khaled Sabsabi and Nur Shkembi as part of the ‘The Big Anxiety: Festival of Arts Science People’, We Are All Affected will examine ideas of anxiety from Muslim communities living in Western Sydney and their experiences.
This exhibition features the work of Australian Muslim artists and provides an insight into what is fast becoming a culturally specific form of anxiety; one which is related to the current socio-political climate, Islamophobia and the unique social, emotional, political and intellectual pressures that exist as a result. The project has the ability to create new conversations and reflections around the festivals' theme from artists that live and deal with issues surrounding representation and identity, exploring notions of anxiety within the framework of the reflective/reactive duality. 

Exhibiting artists include Abdul Abdullah, Abdul Rahman Abdullah, Idil Abdullahi, Cigdem Aydemir, Rusaila Bazlimat, Eugenia Flynn, Khaled Sabsabi and Abdullah M.I. Syed.

Cabracadabra

6 May 2017 – 2 September 2017

Explore the colour and vibrancy of the still-life paintings and interactive installation work by artist Anney Bounpraseuth. Contrasting traditional still-life subject matter of established Australian female artists, Bounpraseuths’ studies focus on objects and knick-knacks drawn from Asian discount variety stores to convey the search for belonging and finding a place within community and dominant culture.

Shanasheel

13 May 2017 – 9 September 2017

This exhibition explores the rivers and waterways of the Dharug nation and its meaning and significance for Aboriginal people. The exhibition features work from artists including Yvonne Koolmatrie, Leanne Tobin, Dianne Ussher, Steven Barton, Susan Grant Murphy, Glen Cunningham, Victoria Woods, Judy Watson and the Guntawang Aboriginal Women’s Group.

A Home Away from Home: Exploring Fairfield City's Multicultural Clubs

3 December 2016 to 10 June 2017

Learn about the formation and evolution of Fairfield City's multicultural clubs and gain an understanding of their importance in Australian social history and cultural identity, in a place that’s A Home Away from Home. The exhibition features photographs and objects either loaned by Clubs or sourced from Fairfield City Council's archives.

This exhibition won a 2017 IMAGinE Award from Museums and Galleries NSW.