Art’s Next Gen: Primavera 2026: Young Australian Artists opens at MCA Australia

Eight young artists have sought inspiration in history, memory and the archive. Whether reaching across eons into distant time or exploring moments just at the edge of memory, each tells a profound story about today through the lens of yesterday.

Primavera 2026: Young Australian Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) features new works that tell intimate stories, uncover crimes, investigate cutting-edge technologies and reveal tender moments. They suggest that the past is never truly fixed or forgotten, but something we carry with us to reinterpret and reimagine together.

The horserace time almost forgot 

Mark Maurangi Carrol presents a new suite of paintings entitled oro enua, atu enua (‘the horse, the lord of land’), inspired by a New Year’s Day event on the Cook Islands (Avaiki Nui) now only recalled by older generations.

The technology that brings dreams to life 

Filmmakers Stanton Cornish-Ward and Trent Crawford premiere their new film Synchresis (Part I), which tackles the unexpected history of the ‘thought-to-image’ technologies that are poised to rewire the brain and our relationship with our own memories.

The queer murder that rocked the Australian Navy 

Callum McGrath’s site-specific installation History Piece excavates the story of a queer love triangle turned murder aboard the HMAS Australia II in 1942, bringing attention to a pivotal moment in LGBTQIA+ history.

The journey back to family and Country 

Performing spoken-word yarning to camera in her new film Skin to Skin, Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis (Pitta Pitta peoples) uses her hands and her voice to assert an unbroken bond with her great-grandmother, a member of the Stolen Generations.

The tapestries reimagined in the shadow of the Cambodian genocide 

Linda Sok’s delicate weavings Deities in Temples grapple with the necessity of invention in the face of loss. Reinterpreting textiles that once adorned temples until they were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, she turns a single colonial record into living culture.

The rocks that may, or may not, have fallen from the stars 

Jack Wansbrough’s installation and stained-glass work Meteorite Enquiries is inspired by an archive of ‘meteorwrongs’ sent in by the public to the Western Australian Museum, hopefully but incorrectly identified as meteorites. His work suggests that even the most mundane things contain infinite possibilities.

The smoky silhouettes that reveal a life lived and lost 

Working at the intersection of photography and sculpture, Rudi Williams explores the traces we leave in the world around us, including the residues left by decades of smoking in a suburban home that silhouette a long-ago life.

MCA Australia Curator Antares Wells said: ‘Primavera 2026 is about traces. The artists in this year’s Primavera consider the marks that we leave in the world around us, from the geological to the span of a single human life and the diversity of stories that surround us everywhere.’
Public program

Public program highlights include:

Primavera 2026 New Writers Program | June–September 2026 
Co-convened by the MCA Australia and the Power Institute at the University of Sydney, this program invites emerging writers to respond to works in Primavera 2026 and the exhibition’s key themes in a series of workshops, culminating in public presentations at the MCA Australia in September 2026.

About Primavera 

Primavera is an annual exhibition that showcases the work of Australian artists aged 35 years and under. It was initiated in 1992 by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in dialogue with Dr Edward Jackson AM and Mrs Cynthia Jackson AM in memory of their daughter Belinda, who died at the age of 29.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body. Primavera 2026: Young Australian Artists is supported by MCA Next, the Museum’s program for young philanthropists.

Primavera 2026 Curator,Antares Wells, is Assistant Curator at the MCA Australia.Previously, she was Curator at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, and Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. She has curated and assisted on a variety of exhibitions, including large-scale surveys, thematic exhibitions and collection displays. She has written and spoken widely on art history and photography, including for the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; 10×10 Photobooks, New York; and Concordia University, Montréal. She maintains an independent writing practice.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) presents, collects and engages with the art of our time. Guided by the principles of belonging, connection and influence, we aim to be the defining platform for contemporary art and ideas in Australia and beyond. Located on Sydney Harbour at Tallawoladah, a home to stories, art and culture for over 65,000 years, we connect the widest possible public to contemporary art through exhibitions, events, creative learning and access programs. Our evolving Collection of over 4,700 artworks is the only public collection in Australia dedicated to the work of living artists, with over a third represented by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. As an independent, not-for-profit organisation, MCA Australia raises over 80% of its revenue each year through donations and commercial activities to deliver its artistic and engagement programs.