POWERHOUSE PARRAMATTA, ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST SIGNIFICANT NEW MUSEUM PROJECTS, OPENS IN SYDNEY 7 NOVEMBER 2026

(MENAFN- MENAFNEditorial) New museum opens 7 November 2026 in Parramatta, one of Australia’s fastest growing and most diverse regions.

Spanning 30,000 sqm with a budget of $AUS 915 million, Powerhouse Parramatta is the largest cultural development in Australia since the Sydney Opera House.

Opening to be celebrated with a twenty-three-day public festival featuring 179 events ranging across First Nations culture; space, science, technology and transport; design, architecture, music, food and film.

Opening exhibitions spanning engineering, technology, design, architecture, and visual art featuring over 3,000 objects include:
•Task Eternal, one of the most ambitious aerospace exhibitions ever staged, with loans from NASA, MIT, Smithsonian, British Museum, and the Australian Space Agency.
•Exhibition exploring the evolution of the shopping mall as one of the most influential forms of modern architecture, designed by OMA.
•Overflow, a First-Nations led exhibition presenting seven commissions developed with Aboriginal-led organisations
•The first major exhibition in Australia of celebrated British artist Es Devlin
•A spectacular immersive space created especially for children
Powerhouse Parramatta, one of the world’s most significant new museum projects and the largest cultural development in Australia since the Sydney Opera House, will open its doors to the public on Saturday 7 November 2026, presenting five ground-breaking exhibitions that place Powerhouse at the forefront of contemporary museum practice.

Situated on the banks of the Parramatta River, Powerhouse Parramatta, with an $AUS 915 million budget including $AUS 75 million philanthropic contribution, is the first state cultural organisation in Western Sydney, one of Australia’s fastest growing and most diverse regions representing communities from over 170 countries. At 30,000 sqm it has been designed by Franco-Japanese architects Moreau Kusunoki (Lead Designer), Australian architects Genton (Local Architect) and Arup.

Powerhouse Parramatta will showcase Australian and global innovations in science, technology, engineering, art and design, presenting over 3,000 objects, including 1,600 drawn from the vast Powerhouse Collection as well as loans from major national and international collections. The opening programme will feature more than 45 new commissions spanning 14 countries and includes seven unique Community Commissions supporting First Nations practices.

The opening will be celebrated with a twenty-three-day festival, running from Saturday 7 – Sunday 29 November, ranging across First Nations culture; space, science, technology and transport; design, architecture, music, food and film. Most events are free to enter, and all will be free for under 16s.

The line-up includes 179 events, talks and performances featuring local, regional, national and international participants. Among those featured are Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency, and Charles Bolden, veteran space astronaut, former Administrator of NASA; best-selling author of such books as The Human Cosmos, Jo Marchant; celebrated American science fiction writer Ted Chiang; British artist Es Devlin; Australian designer Marc Newson; the firstAustralian edition of the world famous Jaipur Literary Festival; the New South Wales Railway Band playing for travellers taking a ride on some of Sydney’s famous historic steam locomotives; from India, internationally renowned artist, Bharti Kher, acclaimed writer, diplomat and historian, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi; the full design team involved in the making of Powerhouse Parramatta including architects, Moreau Kusunoki, Genton, and exhibition architects OMA and OPEN Architecture; and key figures from the world of international museums including Gus Casely-Hayford, Director of V&A East in London.

The complete inaugural exhibition programme at Powerhouse Parramatta has also been unveiled:
Task Eternal
Designed by OPEN Architecture
Tracing humanity’s enduring quest to defy gravity, take flight, and journey into the sky, Task Eternal is one of the most ambitious aerospace exhibitions ever staged. Drawing inspiration from Ted Chiang’s celebrated science fiction story The Tower of Babylon,from First Nations sky knowledges and early aviation to cutting-edge aerospace innovations, this monumental exhibition features over 850 objects with loans from institutions including NASA, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the British Museum, MIT, and the Australian Space Agency. Highlights include the ‘black box’ flight recorder, an Australian innovation designed to record aircraft data and James Turrell’s monumental immersive work, Shangri La (Over the Hump) (2026), which will envelop visitors and the entire space in cycles of changing, saturated colours that breakdown boundaries and perceptions of place and time.

The Mall
Designed and curated in collaboration with OMA/AMO
The Mall examines the shopping centre as one of the most influential forms of architecture in modern life. A reimagining of retail reality, The Mall will look at the history and evolution of shopping malls and the stories they hold, reflecting on the changing rituals of retail and the role shopping centres play in civic life. Unfolding in parts and featuring over 560 objects from the Powerhouse Collection alongside international loans and 18 multidisciplinary new commissions, the exhibition will reveal the interconnected systems that have transformed retail culture. Among the exhibits are the archive of celebrated architect Victor Gruen who pioneered the design of shopping malls in America; a display highlighting Australian brands emerged from beaches, skate parks, and city streets that have shaped local identity; a major co-commission with M+ in Hong Kong to the South Korean artist Ayoung Kim; loans from the archives of major international brands including Levi, Nike, Patagonia, Speedo, and Woolworths; and a contemporary reimagining by Vert Design of Southwest Sydney’s Roselands Raindrop Fountain.

Overflow
Designed with Country by Tyrrell Studio
Overflow is a First Nations-led exhibition grounded in the living principles of Water Country. Featuring 7 community commissions developed with Aboriginal-led organisations across New South Wales, Overflow shares enduring practices that extend care to saltwater and freshwater systems.

The work of the commissioned organisations – including Baramadagal Community, Gamay Rangers, The Goondee Aboriginal Keeping Place and Museum, Jagun Alliance, Joonga Land and Water Aboriginal Corporation, Moogahlin Performing Arts and Naru Aboriginal Corporation – demonstrates Aboriginal knowledge as an active system of care. Spanning saltwater and freshwater systems, these practices encompass endangered species protection, flood mitigation, sustainable and commercial fishing, water monitoring, wellbeing, language revitalisation and cultural water rights. These stories are brought to life by the cinematic lens of acclaimed filmmaker and Kamilaroi man Ivan Sen. Through the installation, water becomes more than subject matter: it is presence, memory, kin and a force that carries stories across generations, reflecting on the power of water and how it has shaped the land beneath us over millennia.
Es Devlin: The Turning
Es Devlin is one of the most influential artists working today – a visionary whose work dissolves the boundaries between sculpture, film, architecture, language and performance. The first exhibition of Es Devlin in Australia, Es Devlin: The Turning presents 5 major commissions: Forest of Us, Memory Palace, Collective Portrait, Screenshare and Redraw the Edges of Yourself. Together, they create an atmospheric environment where audiences transform and contribute to each work through acts of gathering, drawing and reflection. Continuing Devlin’s interest in the collective imagination, Earth’s vast biodiversity and the profound ability of places to house memories, the exhibition is informed by Sydney, its ecologies, communities and evolving identities.

The Dark
Designers: Kip Williams and Elizabeth Gadsby
The Dark defies the conventions of exhibition for children. Developed with the internationally acclaimed Australian theatre director Kip Williams and artist/designer Elizabeth Gadsby, the exhibition is enclosed in the form of a vast meteorite emitting a fractured glow in a room without light, is inspired by a cast of a meteorite that is part of the Powerhouse Collection. Young visitors are asked to test the limits of their perception. The Dark is an experiment in unlearning, a radical proposal for how young people might be engaged: not as passive audiences, but as explorers of difficult knowledge.

Powerhouse Parramatta has been conceived as a dynamic cultural precinct – a space for major festivals, events and public programmes that reflect and amplify the energy of Western Sydney. Each of the museum’s seven Presentation Spaces are unique and distinct, their layouts adapted for a dynamic programme of exhibitions engaging audiences with contemporary ideas and innovation. With dedicated retail spaces, cafes and restaurants, and specialist facilities including the Lang Walker Family Academy, a world first in residential learning enabling 10,000 students to stay at the Powerhouse every year, the Vitocco Family Kitchen, bringing together leading chefs and food producers to share the histories and cultures of food alongside the science and technology of food systems, a rooftop observatory and productive Indigenous garden, and residential apartments to accommodate up to 30 international and national researchers, academics and leaders from industry and community, enabling collaborations with the Powerhouse to develop and deliver new projects.

Powerhouse is the largest museum group in Australia with four locations across Sydney. With its origins in the Museum of Applied Arts and Science founded in 1879, it sits at the intersection of art, design, science, and technology. Custodian to over half a million objects of national and international significance, it is considered one of the finest and most diverse collections in Australia. Powerhouse Parramatta forms part of an AU$1.3 billion infrastructure renewal programme, which includes the renewal of the iconic Powerhouse in Ultimo, expanded research and public facilities at Powerhouse Castle Hill, and the ongoing heritage restoration of Sydney Observatory.

Powerhouse Interim CEO, Abbie Galvin said:
“The Powerhouse Parramatta Opening Festival Program is a celebration of local Western Sydney communities, industries in the applied arts and sciences, and education.
“The team have worked so hard to deliver this extraordinary program. It’s full of passion for Western Sydney, for science, creativity, and culture. I would like to thank the whole team, and over 1,200 collaborators who are contributing to this twenty-three-day celebration.”

Powerhouse Parramatta is funded by the NSW Government, delivered by Infrastructure NSW, constructed by Lendlease and is being realised through the generosity, support and collaborations of foundations, agencies, businesses and individuals for the benefit of NSW communities and the world.

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