iMuseum of Contemporary Art AustraliaThe Rocks
Connections: MCA x Tate
Contemporary art from the shared collections of the MCA Australia and Tate Modern, London, including works by Yhonnie Scarce.
More in Sydney
Yhonnie Scarce's family hang printed on cloth: her grandmother Melba at 18 on French linen, because Melba valued good fabric, and her grandfather Willy, a shearer, on blankets from his era. Hand-blown glass yams sit around them, strung as necklaces and packed into a toolbox. Scarce told Tate she considers Aboriginal people "Australia's royalty".
Between 2015 and 2022 the MCA and Tate bought 35 works together with a $2.75 million Qantas Foundation gift, and both museums own them. A selection anchors each gallery on Level 2, with MCA Collection works and three new commissions around them, 33 artists in all. The thread is trade, travel and migration, and the friction British colonisation left behind. You pass a Yolŋu dugout canoe with a woven pandanus sail, then star maps made of bamboo and shells.
Entry is the MCA's general ticket: $25 adult, $20 concession, free for under-18s and Members. Thursdays run to 9pm, with 2-for-1 tickets from 5pm, and a curator tour on Thursday 5 November at 6pm is included.
Look for
Yhonnie Scarce, Remember Royalty
Look for four family photographs printed on linen, vintage blankets and a sheet, with glass yams, glass spheres like planets and a French suitcase of vintage gloves and handkerchiefs.
Helen Ganalmirriwuy Garrawurra's canoe
A new commission: a wooden dugout canoe with a woven pandanus sail, coloured with plant dyes and drawing on Yolŋu trade with Macassan sailors.
Gail Mabo's star maps
New star maps in bamboo, twine, cotton cord and shells, reworking the old-style charts once used to navigate Zenadth Kes, the Torres Strait.
Shireen Taweel's copper
Pierced, scored and moulded copper forms, informed by an Australian pilgrimage navigated with Arabic astronomical methods.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Rainy Days
Skip if
You want one artist's story in depth: this is 33 artists sharing a floor.
With kids
Under-18s get in free.
Also at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
8
- Connections: MCA x TateCourtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
- Portia Geach Memorial Award 2026Courtesy of S.H. Ervin Gallery
- Jordan Gower: Does the moon know the well?Photograph: Jacquie Manning
- Museum of Contemporary Art AustraliaTony Hisgett / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Justice & Police Museumsv1ambo, CC BY 2.0
- Sydney ObservatoryDicklyon, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museum of SydneyElekhh, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- S.H. Ervin GalleryCollywolly / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0