Image: Yhonnie Scarce, ‘Remember Royalty’, 2018, installation view ‘Connections: MCA x Tate’, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2026, photographs, screen print on fabric, hand-blown glass, vintage objects, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Tate, with support from the Qantas Foundation in 2015, purchased 2022, courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art Australia © the artist, photograph: Anna Kucera
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia has opened ‘Connections: MCA × Tate’, an exhibition built around works acquired jointly by the MCA and Tate. It is on view in the Level 2 galleries of the museum’s Sydney building in Tallawoladah, Gadigal Country, from 15 August 2026 until 1 March 2027.
From 2015 to 2022 the MCA partnered with Tate, London, through the International Joint Acquisition Program, supported by the Qantas Foundation. Thirty-five works were jointly acquired, to be owned and displayed by both institutions, and many of them were the subject of a major presentation at Tate Modern between 2021 and 2023. In Sydney the co-acquired works provide a focal point in each gallery, shown alongside holdings from the wider MCA Collection and several new commissions.
The museum frames the exhibition around the ways cultural exchange and trade, travel, migration and diasporic experiences have shaped Australia, and around how artists address cultural frictions arising from British colonisation. The MCA’s exhibition page lists works by more than thirty artists, whose practices engage with place, cultural knowledge, memory and material traditions.
Among the works identified in the museum’s exhibition documentation are Yhonnie Scarce’s ‘Remember Royalty’ (2018), an installation incorporating photographs, screen-printed fabric, hand-blown glass and vintage objects, and Judy Watson’s ‘memory scar, grevillea, mangrove pod (& net)’ (2020), made with indigo, acrylic, graphite and linen thread on canvas.
Other works include Noŋgirrŋa Marawili’s ‘Baratjala’ (2020), made with earth pigments and printer toner on bark; Vernon Ah Kee’s multi-channel digital video ‘tall man’ (2010); and Mabel Juli’s paintings ‘Garnkiny’ (2013) and ‘Garnkiny Ngarranggarni’ (2016). The display also includes Helen Johnson’s group of paintings ‘Bad Debt’, ‘A Feast of Reason and a Flow of Soul’ and ‘Seat of Power’, all from 2016.
The selection extends beyond works acquired through the joint program. Frances Djulibing’s ‘Yukuwa (feather string yam vine)’ (2013), made from banyan tree bark, cockatoo feathers and beeswax, and Esme Timbery’s ‘Shellworked slippers’ (2008) are listed among the works presented. The exhibition documentation also identifies a 2026 work by Gail Mabo, ‘Zenadth Kes’, made from bamboo, twine, cotton cord and shells, and Helen Ganalmirriwuy Garrawurra’s ‘Lipa’lipa ga dhomola (dugout canoe and woven pandanus sail)’ (2026), made with pandanus, kurrajong bark, natural plant dyes, kapok and hardwood.
Newer additions include Shireen Taweel’s ‘the Hajja locates Nasr Altair above the horizon, her coordinates adjusted, she navigates towards the centre’ (2026), a hand-pierced and engraved sheet-copper work. Entry is included with museum admission and is free for MCA Members and visitors under 18. The exhibition is supported by Major Patrons David and Michelle Coe, Lorraine Tarabay and Nick Langley, and Victoria Taylor.
