Image: Heide Museum of Modern Art, BULLEEN
Heide Museum of Modern Art will open 'Watch These Hands' on 4 July 2026, presenting new commissions by 12 artists whose practices are rooted in custodianship, connection to Country, community and intergenerational knowledge. The exhibition runs through 25 October at Heide Modern in Bulleen, and is included with museum admission.
The project has been developed through InPlace’s Commissions Program and Cultural Exchange Program, drawing on time spent on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country at InPlace’s Garambi Baanj (Laughing Waters) Cultural Precinct. Heide says the works explore cultural landscapes, collaborative storytelling and custodial responsibilities, while asking how collective obligations to place might be carried across generations.
According to the museum, 'Watch These Hands' brings together artists working across different First Nations and community contexts, including Aunty Kim Wandin (Wurundjeri), Brooke Wandin (Wurundjeri), Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation’s Narrap (Country) Unit, Uncle Badger Bates (Barkandji), Siri Hayes (Naarm/Melbourne), Zena Zada Cumpston (Barkandji/Kurnu), Paul Wood (Naarm/Melbourne), Helen Ganalmirriwuy (Ḻiyagawumirr Garrawurra), Jennifer Roy Dikarr Malarra and Maddison Miller (Darug). The exhibition also lists Edward Mullins (Wurundjeri/Noongar), Damien Nicholson (Wurundjeri/Gunai-Kurnai) and Ash Firebrace (Wurundjeri/Yorta-Yorta) as part of the Narrap unit.
Heide identifies Eugene Howard, director of InPlace, as guest curator of the exhibition. The museum’s announcement situates the show within a broader July program that also includes other exhibitions across the site, but 'Watch These Hands' is specifically located at Heide Modern. The exhibition page describes one related image from an InPlace cultural exchange between Yolŋu artists, Aboubakar Fofana and Zena Cumpston, as sharing plant knowledge at Milingimbi, NT.
The exhibition arrives amid a busy season at Heide, which is also hosting several other 2026 shows in different spaces, including 'John Perceval: All That We Are' in the Main Galleries, 'Crichton, Tucker, Whiteley: The Chelsea Hotel Years 1967–69' in the Albert & Barbara Tucker Gallery, 'Badra Aji: Get the boy a dog and call it a day' in the Kerry Gardner & Andrew Myer Project Gallery, and 'Always Modern: Radical Nurture' in Heide Cottage. Those exhibitions are separate projects with their own dates and curators.
For 'Watch These Hands', the museum emphasises the role of making and exchange as forms of cultural responsibility. The exhibition is framed not as a retrospective but as a set of contemporary commissions shaped by place-based programs, with Heide listing the show’s dates as 4 July to 25 October 2026 and its venue as Heide Modern in Bulleen.
