TarraWarra International 2026: System Release

A bold new exhibition exploring creative approaches to precarious times.

2026 marks the return of TarraWarra Museum of Art’s TarraWarra International series, paused during and after the pandemic, with TarraWarra International 2026: System Release.

Curated by Dr Emily Cormack (Aotearoa New Zealand and Naarm Melbourne), who was appointed Head of Exhibitions and Programs at TarraWarra in April 2025, the exhibition brings together ten artists from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and Mexico.

Working across sculpture, installation, moving image and assemblage, the artists respond to a world shaped by instability, uncertainty and global precarity. Rather than seeking fixed solutions, System Release explores new ways of organising, sensing and making meaning, proposing order as a form of relationship with chaos.

The exhibition invites audiences to consider alternative systems of knowledge and ways of being, grounded in First Nations thinking, posthumanism, collective intelligence and more-than-human worldviews.

Participating artists: Daniel Boyd, Francis Carmody, Megan Cope, José Dávila, Alicia Frankovich, Marco Fusinato, Nikau Hindin, Nicholas Mangan, Dane Mitchell and Shannon Te Ao

Curator and Head of Exhibitions and Programs, Dr Emily Cormack, says:

“We look to artists to expose, explore and interpret precarious global conditions, offering us new perspectives and new ways of being in the world. As international systems of law and governance become increasingly contested, this exhibition forecasts creative approaches that move beyond the tenuous, imperfect pacts that have held the last century in place. As these systems collapse, they also release, creating space for new organising principles, where humans might develop with technology, where Indigenous knowledge is more central, and where the interconnectedness between humans and nature is reaffirmed.”

Director of TarraWarra Museum of Art, Dr Victoria Lynn, says:

“The TarraWarra International series was inaugurated in 2013 with Animate/Inanimate, followed by Pierre Huyghe (2015), All that is solid… (2017) and The Tangible Trace (2019). Each exhibition has brought compelling and relevant international artists to TarraWarra Museum of Art, often in dialogue with Australian artists. We are delighted to welcome Dr Emily Cormack back to the Museum – she curated the TarraWarra Biennial 2018: From Will to Form – and we look forward to this imaginative and thoughtful new iteration of the TarraWarra International.”

About TarraWarra International:

Established in 2013, the TarraWarra International series supports Australian artists to present their work within a global context by exhibiting alongside leading contemporary practitioners from abroad. The initiative situates their practices within international conversations and expands opportunities for critical engagement with contemporary art. Each edition of TarraWarra International has explored key developments in contemporary practice, from relationships between the animate and inanimate to shifting experiences of temporality and speculative responses to the archive, including Animate/Inanimate (2013), Pierre Huyghe (2015), All that is solid… (2017) and The Tangible Trace (2019). Paused during and after the global pandemic, the program returns in 2026 with System Release, curated by Dr Emily Cormack; now alternating every two years with the TarraWarra Biennial, the series remains committed to rigorous curatorial research, ambitious new commissions and providing audiences with accessible, thought‑provoking encounters with major works by leading Australian and international artists.

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