The best exhibitions to see in Sydney this month

Australia’s most popular arts event is back in action for 2025. They call it “the face that stops the nation”, and the Archibald Prize for portraiture has indeed been courting controversy and conversation for more than a century now. Meanwhile, the Wynne Prize awards the best landscape painting of Australian scenery or figurative sculpture, and the Sulman is awarded to the best genre painting, subject painting or mural project.

As the distinctions between the digital and the material worlds become increasingly blurred, the way we think about art, society and technology is radically shifting. In the latest exhibition at Artspace, Amongst the clouds (digital materialities in the 21st century), we see a group of six artists exploring new ways that art and technology can work together to shape our physical and digital worlds. 

The $30,000 Dobell Drawing Prize has a rich history of celebrating some of Australia’s most renowned artists, and you don’t have to hand over a cent to head down to the gorgeous gallery inside the sandstone walls of the National Art School to check out all of this year’s finalists.

The MCA presents the first solo museum exhibition by Kamilaroi artist Warraba Weatherall, whose work has been exhibited widely nationally and internationally over the past decade. Through a dynamic combination of installation, sculpture and video works, Shadow and Substance turns a critical eye to the colonial record – reframing existing narratives about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and culture found within archival and museum collections. 

For the 60th year in a row, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition has arrived in Sydney, on loan from London’s Natural History Museum. This incredibly prestigious photography event is centred on drawing attention to the wild beauty and fragility of the natural world.

One of the biggest visitor drawcards for the gorgeous State Library of NSW, the World Press Photo exhibition is back in Sydney for its most powerful year yet. From war zones to the climate crisis, gender politics to migration, this stunning annual exhibition showcases the most astonishing, thought-provoking, and often beautiful images published by photojournalists in the past twelve months.

Ever wondered what Sydney would have looked like without all the clustered skyscrapers, scenic foreshores and sprawling suburbs? Seeing Sydney, Knowing Country strips the Harbour City right back to reveal the land as it once was. Running until November, the exhibition at the Museum of Sydney shows how the British colony took shape — and how knowledge of Country has continued to shape Sydney across generations.