The best art and exhibitions in Melbourne this month

Walk, talk and gawp like an Egyptian with this blockbuster exhibition all about ancient Egyptian art and culture. Pharaoh constitutes the biggest loan of ancient Egyptian artefacts that the British Museum has ever presented to international audiences – most of which will be on display in Australia for the very first time. Read more.

This exhibition shines a light on 36 of Australia's leading First Nations creatives, tracing an Indigenous design movement that has evolved into a national phenomenon. 

Witness the beauty and story of 24 hand-crafted garments by Indigenous artists and designers, created across the nation from the inner city to remote desert art centres. The diversity of these garments reflects the strength and breadth of the rapidly expanding Indigenous fashion and textile industry in this country. Read more.

Expect to be dazzled by the depth and breadth of this collection of couture, body adornments, ready-to-wear fashions and behind-the-scenes materials like photography and film. Africa Fashion is part historical survey and part contemporary showcase, featuring visually arresting garments from icons of twentieth century African fashion. Read more.

The colourful creatures that make up ACMI’s latest, world premiere exhibition burst to life from a single drawn line, before growing and changing right before your eyes. The more you move and interact in the space, the more animated these curious characters will get, morphing between forms and textures for a hyperreal experience. Read more.

As you enter the tranquil space of the museum’s living Forest Gallery, you’ll encounter portraits of Elders and community members of the Eastern Kulin Nations. Use your phone to listen to their stories, detailing their unique and personal relationships to Country. Read more.

This blockbuster exhibition features murals, sculptures, photos, mapping shows (aka images or animations projected onto irregularly shaped surfaces), installations (including an “infinity room” filled with mirrors) and a simulation of ‘Dismaland Bemusement Park’ (for those who’ve never heard of it, it’s a gritty, dark theme park that was created by Banksy in 2015). Read more.

This new exhibition iscentered around the social significance of our strands. Hair Pieces will bring together artworks spanning five decades from nine different countries in an effort to interrogate the ways in which hair is figuratively interwoven with social mores. More than 30 artists from countries including China, Belgium, Japan, South America and Australia will be shown. Read more. Read more.

Lost in Palm Springs brings together fourteen internationally recognised photographers and creatives from the United States and Australia to capture and reimagine the distinctive yet enchanting nature of the famous Californian resort city. Read more.

Joy features seven brand new commissioned installations from leading Victorian-based creatives, each expressing the artists’ own personal joy. You can expect an emotive adventure where colour and storytelling combine, and big happy moments that sit alongside more reflective ones. Read more.

For most of us, Lego is a nostalgic hobby from bygone childhood years, but there are an exceptional few who took these tiny building blocks from a fun pastime to the next level. Lego artist Nathan Sawaya is one of these talented individuals who is showcasing his fascinating sculptures with a new exhibition that has to be seen to be believed. 

The Art of the Brick Immersive Experience exhibition features more than 100 contemporary artworks, all crafted using more than one million Lego bricks to make large-scale, life-like creations. 

After a sold-out season back in 2011, it's returning to our city as part of a huge world tour with brand new pieces, having already visited 100 cities across 24 countries. Sawaya is the only person in the world who has the double title of Lego Master Model Builder and Lego Certified Professional. Whoa. 

Some of the works showcased in the exhibition include a giant version of Sawaya's most famous sculpture, 'Yellow', which stands at more than six feet tall, plus an installation with 250 kinetic Lego skulls, a piece called 'Infinity Rainbow' that features seven life-sized sculptures, the 30-foot long 'Big Swimmer', dazzling 360-degree digital projections and lots more.

The Art of the Brick Immersive Experience opens on April 14 at the Melbourne Showgrounds. Tickets go on sale on March 21 at 7pm, and you can sign up for the waitlist here. Find out more about the exhibition at the website. 

Looking for more things to do? Check out our guide to what's on.

Alongside Da Vinci's art, the exhibition will also feature groundbreaking inventions from his notebooks recreated to scale by Italian artisans, including flying machine concepts that predate human flight by more than 400 years. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, for the first time in history, original pages of da Vinci’s sketches and writings will touch down in Australia. Read more.

Translating to ‘many mobs’ in the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung language, Wurrdha Marra will showcase pieces from emerging and established artists from across Australia.Highlights of the free exhibition include a large-scale installation of fish traps produced by Burrara women from Maningrida. Read more.

Supported by the City of 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. Read more.