NEW Series @ ACCA

NEW Series

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
Main exhibition gallery
Free

Long regarded by artists and audiences alike as a benchmark for early-career practice, NEW originally ran at ACCA from 2003 - 2016, offering a vital platform for the next generation of Australian artists to experiment, take risks, and present major new work within a public institution.

Reclaiming this important legacy, The new NEW will feature commissioned works by up to seven early-career artists, each supported by ACCA to expand the boundaries of their practice.

Presented biennially, NEW26 is the first installment in this revitalised series, reaffirming ACCA's commitment to fostering experimental and critically engaged contemporary art, revealing the dynamic conceptual and material investigations shaping artistic practice today.

Curated by: Dr Shelley McSpedden & Sophie Prince

ACCA warmly thanks the Patagorang Foundation for their leadership support of this exhibition.

About the series:
The NEW series at ACCA was a vital platform for emerging contemporary artists in the region, offering early career artists the opportunity to create ambitious new work in a major public institution. NEW helped launch the careers of many artists by giving them space, resources and curatorial support to experiment and take risk. Artists featured in NEW included Helen Johnson, Christian Thompson, Jess Johnson, Tony Albert, Anastasia Klose, Nicholas Mangan, Sean Peoples, Sonia Leber, and many, many others! Over its fifteen-year run, the series became a key barometer of new practice in Australian art. Many NEW artists have gone on to major national and international success, making this a vital incubator for some of the most influential voices in contemporary art today.

NEW26
Fri 18 Sep 2026 - Sun 22 Nov 2026