The best free exhibitions in Melbourne this month

Traversing time and space, Wurrdha Marra is a new exhibition celebrating the diversity of First Nations art and design. From October 12, the ground floor and foyer of the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia will become a dynamic and ever-changing exhibition space that displays masterpieces and never-before-shown works from the NGV’s First Nations collection.

Translating to ‘many mobs’ in the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung language, Wurrdha Marra will showcase pieces from emerging and established artists from across Australia, including Tony Abert, Treahna Hamn, Kent Morris, Marlene Gilson, Rover Thomas, Christian Thompson, Gary Lee, Nicole Monks, Gali Yalkarriwuy, Dhambit Mungunggurr, Nonggirrnga Marawili and more. 

Highlights of the free exhibition include a large-scale installation of fish traps produced by Burrara women from Maningrida – the objects have been crafted over weeks using vines from the bush. Also on display is a new collection of contemporary resin boomerangs by Keemon Williams, a First Nations queer artist hailing from Meanjin/Brisbane. Another unseen work is titled History Repeats by Girramay/Yidinji/Kuku Yalanji contemporary artist Tony Albert, who has used mass-produced objects – from tea towels to ashtrays – to reframe Indigenous histories. 

Altogether, the display offers a rich journey through pivotal moments in Australian art history from 65,000 years of First Peoples practices right through to the present day.

Wurrdha Marra will be open from October 12 at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square. Entry is free, and you can access further information by visiting the NGV website here. 

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Lovers of the written word rejoice; a free exhibition over at the State Library Victoria is spotlighting the history of book design, production and illustration from the Middle Ages to the present day. World of the Book features more than 300 rare, remarkable, historically significant items in the State Collection, each unravelling a unique story from its pages. 

This year’s themes hone in on books and ideas; books and imagination; art and nature; artists and books; and Egyptology to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb. 

Exhibition highlights include a book on astronomy as far back as 336CE, a 17th-century book defaced by cat paw prints, rare editions of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass on display and an edition of Mary Shelley’s science-friction masterpiece Frankenstein. Printed during the author’s lifetime, it is the first edition to contain a preface where Shelley recounts the story of the novel’s inception: on the shores of Lake Geneva during a thunderstorm where Mary, her husband Percy Shelley and Lord Byron competed with one another to tell the best ghoulish story. 

World of the Book also includes several masterpieces by female writers on show for the first time, such as an embroidered binding that belonged to Henrietta Maria, the Queen Consort married to King Charles I until he was executed. The physicist Émilie du Châtelet’s most recognised achievement, her French translation of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, is also featured in the exhibit. 

Running until May 12, 2024, you’ll find World of the Book at the Dome Galleries, Level 4 of the State Library Victoria. For more information, visit the website here.

Love art? Check out what other art exhibitions are happening in Melbourne this month. Plus, these are the most beautiful libraries in Melbourne.

Flash Forward is Melbourne’s most ambitious street art project, with over 40 large-scale works commissioned and set to hit the laneways of Melbourne. Among the program are familiar names like Celeste Mountjoy (filthyratbag), Jarra Karralinar Steel, Olana Janfa, Aretha Brown, DREZ, and Ling, with more lighting, music and creative installations in the works. 

If you’re interested in taking yourself on a laneway tour, there’s an interactive and printable map available on the Flash Forward website.