The best things to do in Sydney for free

The Powerhouse Museum will mark Nowrouz – that's Persian New Year if you didn't know – on March 19 with a new exhibition, Iranzamin. It’s the museum’s first dedicated survey of their Persian arts and crafts collection, presenting more than 100 rarely seen gems. The show explores the rich social and cultural history of Persian society, known today as Iran, with a distinct focus on the Qajar era, spanning 1789-1925. The exhibition is divided into seven themes: Joy and Happiness, Purification and Cleansing, Spirituality and Devotion, Poetry and Calligraphy, Rituals and Performance, Patronage and Craftsmanship, and finally Nature and Design. Iranzamin encompasses everything from hand-woven carpets and rugs, to armour and weaponry, to beautiful blown glass pieces, ceramics, tiles and embroidery. Persia straddled two main trade routes in the Indian Ocean and the Silk Road, so many of its cultural traditions spread far and wide. Iranzamin also acknowledges the wide-reaching influence of this artistic diaspora, including the works of Australian painter and textile designer Florence Broadhurst. Curator Pedram Khosronejad says, “Persia has a long tradition of arts and crafts stretching back more than a millennium, but it was under the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, King of Persia between 1848 and 1896, that Persian arts and crafts flourished. The Powerhouse’s Persian collection, mostly from the Qajar era, is unique, rich and diverse. The objects tell fascinating stories about Irania

What brings Ryan Gosling together with Jesus, Julius Caesar and Mozart? The eye-popping ceramic artwork of Glenn Barkley is the surprising answer. The keen gardener, curator, writer and artist is perhaps best known for crafting beautifully colourful ceramic works that pair pop culture references with knowing winks to the classics. You’ll be able to play Where’s Wally? with all four of the famous faces above in his latest exhibition The Urn of Bitter Prophecy, showing at Sullivan and Strumpf gallery in Zetland from April 15 until May 8. Each of the pastel-hued urns, some tiny, some huge, is adorned with historical figures casually hanging out with the stars of today. The exhibition name is lifted from a Percy Shelley poem, Hellas, written in 1821, and lines from it trace their way around several of the works, as do pop lyrics, making for a fun game of place the line. You’ll also be able to check out Barkley’s gorgeous painting and collages. Some of his intricate designs for the latter have been turned into wallpaper, with one lush example now hanging in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. You’ll also get a sneak peek at a new frontier for the artist, with a natty line in tile-making. If you can’t make it down to the gallery, you can also check it out online already. See if you can spot the Gosling. And don't get bitter if you can't. Love colourful art? Check out Lumen at White Rabbit. 

Every Wednesday and Saturday you can pick up a bag of crunchy carrots, loaf of warm sourdough and an armful of flowers at EQ’s Cambridge Markets. The Entertainment Quarter has been home to a fresh produce and arts and crafts market for 20 years, and in 2018 market experts Madelienne Anderson and Rebecca Fox took over the show, adding EQ to their list of market spaces around Sydney, from Watsons Bay to Cronulla.  There are about 40 stallholders at each market peddling gourmet cheeses, ripe cherry tomatoes and piping hot gozleme. It’s a broad mix of retailers, from fruit and veggie stalls to children’s clothing and French linen.  The Markets are back in action after the mass government shutdowns, but if you can't make it down to grab your haul, you can still order fresh food and flowers for home delivery on Wednesdays and Saturdays from the Cambridge Markets website. Place your order by noon on Tuesday for Wednesday delivery, or by noon Friday for a Saturday order. You can also get your hands on certified organic fruit and vegetable boxes from from Block11 Organics, third-generation farmers with farms in central western New South Wales and the Hawkesbury.  There's no beating the community vibe of getting down to the markets in person, however. No matter what day you visit, there are picnic benches all around the all-weather market where you can sip a coffee and soothe a hangover. Kids love the pony rides that are often available on weekends and there’s heaps of parking in Moore

Carriageworks has given over the vast hangar-like space of Bay 21 to contemporary art biennial show The National, as curated by Abigail Moncrieff. Don't miss Indigenous media group Karrabing Film Collective’s powerful 30-minute work ‘Day in the Life #1’. The group takes its name from the Emmi language word for “low tide turning” and their works interrogate inequality for First Nations’ peoples of the Northern Territory. A documentary-style work, it speaks up loud and proud. Elsewhere you can check out some really cool neon works by multi-disciplinary artist Darren Sylvester, including the funky ‘Psychic’s House’, and Brendan Van Hek’s ‘Portable Horizon (Aquamarine, midnight blue)’, which casts a vibrant glow over the space. A series of lightbox works by Alana Hunt also contribute to the glimmer as you walk through the cavernous space, filled with creativity. Lorraine Connelly-Northey’s trio of wire sculptures and smaller wall-hanging versions ‘Narrbong Galang’ are beautiful as you enter the main space, as are the bold red and yellow stripes of a giant graph-like creation by regular collaborators Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley. And don’t overlook Vernon Ah Kee, Dalisa Pigram and Marrugeku’s brilliant video installation ‘Guidirr Guidirr’ in Bay 19. A darkly comic laceration of racism in this country wrapped up in the astounding beauty of this continent, it’s one of the best films we’ve seen so far this year, and you’ll easily lose half an hour or more in its astounding gr

There are outstanding riches of colour on offer in the marvellous MCA outing for biennial contemporary art show The National. It’s a veritable cornucopia of creative excellence well worth whiling away a few hours in, especially as Sydney eases into the cooler months. Even when the work is black and white – like Caroline Rothwell’s mesmerically swirling digital animation ‘Carbon Emission 5, Constructivist Rococo’ – it is vibrantly so. APY Lands artist Betty Kuntiwa Pumani’s beautiful large-scale works on linen are a riot of reds and blues that thrum with desert life. Deborah Kelly’s dazzling video installation and accompanying portraits are whirlwind of human hybrid forms twirling for glory that will put you into a blissed-out trance. There’s a deep blue dingo stalking Pakistan-born, Sydney-based multi-disciplinary artist Mehwish Iqbal’s gorgeous tapestry work ‘Assemblage of the Fragmented Landscape’ and Maree Clarke’s stunning photography of topless men wearing traditional jewellery. Judith Wright’s stunning hanging portraits daubed on Japanese rice paper, and Lauren Berkowitz’ bright plastic pendants are also wow-making. Everywhere you look there’s something majestic, and nowhere more so than as you walk into the final works of the late First Nations artist Ms Wirrpanda, who was a respected leader of the Dhuḏi-Djapu clan of Dhuruputjpi until her untimely death just a few weeks before the opening of The National. The power of her work speaks for itself, and to share it amongs

One of Australia’s most pioneering and prolific sculptors gets an overdue red carpet retrospective roll out at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with Margel Hinder: Modern in Motion. Presented in partnership with Melbourne’s Heide Museum of Modern, the show spans the late, great sculptor's 50-year career, from early wood carvings right through to later space age kinetic wire works and major public commissions. “Margel Hinder was an agent for cultural change and part of the first generation of abstract artists in Australia,” AGNSW director Dr Michael Brand says. “This important retrospective reveals how vital Hinder was in the making of Sydney’s modernism and for asserting the place of sculpture within it.” Hinder was born in Brooklyn and studied in Buffalo, New York, and Boston, migrating to Australia in 1934 after marrying Australian artist Frank Hinder. It’s here where she truly made her mark. The show is co-curated by AGNSW senior curator of Australian art Denise Mimmocchi and Heide artistic director Lesley Harding, who says the exhibition represents a much-needed exploration of the breadth and depth of Hinder’s fascinating body of work. “Apart from her inclusion in a few surveys of local modernism, Hinder’s vanguard practice and its legacy have largely been overlooked since the 1980s. This exhibition presents her innovative and visually arresting sculpture to new generations and the wide audience it deserves.” Including maquettes (sculptural models or rough drafts), draw

Step into a beautiful world of darkness and light that glows brighter than colour when UTS Gallery presents a gorgeous survey exhibition of the incredible photography of First Nations artist Hayley Millar Baker. Pulled together under the title There We Were All in One Place, it collects 35 works spanning five photographic series created between 2016 and 2019. Opening on April 13 and in place until June 4, the show explores Aboriginal experience and culture: a sense of place, family and identity. Millar Baker’s work is informed by her Gunditjmara and cross-cultural heritage, by a keen interest in historical archives, and also integrates photographs taken by her grandfather in celebration of inter-generational creativity. “Guided by a non-linear form of storytelling that sees past, present and future as an unbroken continuum, Millar Baker uses photography and storytelling to re-author history and assert the authority of memory and experience across generations,” says UTS Curator Stella Rosa McDonald. The exhibition is accompanied by a Learning Experience designed by curator and educator Emily McDaniel in consultation with Millar Baker. Aimed at tertiary students across disciplines but available to all visitors to the exhibition, the experience is designed to facilitate the development of personal connections to the work and encourages participants to reflect on their own personal experiences, memories and understandings. It will tour to Deakin University Art Gallery and Flinder

From the moment you set foot in the Art Gallery of New South Wales outpost (AGNSW) of this year's spectacular Australian art biennial The National, your eye is immediately drawn down into the belly of this beast of a show, curated by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art specialist Erin Vink and Asian art expert Matt Cox. Melbourne-based artists Wona Bee and Charlie Lawler draw you in with their haunting work ‘Regenerator’, a suspended row of seven charcoal circles that conjure up the ghostly trace of the bushfire season’s aftermath, but also hint at new life caught in endless circulation. This powerful piece hands over to Judy Watson’s sky-blue tapestries ‘clouds and undercurrents’ hanging over the escalators. A powerful way to reclaim the atrium’s open space, they create a beautiful focal point glimpsed from many spots below. Two astounding installations take up space in the very best way in the AGNSW exhibition. Justin Shoulder’s glorious inflatable installation ‘Aeon+: Titan Arum’ depicts a primordial soup-like scenario where inflatable creatures flail as if emerging from their mother’s womb, all bathed in fluctuating pink and purple hues. It’s mesmeric, and if you’re lucky enough, you’ll catch one of the fabulous LGBTQ+ artist’s live performances in the space. We also love Torres Strait Islander artist Alik Tipoti’s knowing wink works ‘Dhangal Madhubal’, depicting Southern Cross-adorned creatures, including a shark hanging from one gallery space ceiling. Also check o

The Hurstville Museum and Gallery pops this summer with the arrival on tour of the 2019 Stencil Art Prize finalists. Exhibiting from February 6 though to May 2, the show features the edgy, eye-catching and politically charged works created by 55 creatives from across the globe. There’s a mind-bending array of technique on display too, from photo-realist stencils built painstakingly, layer upon layer, to intricate hand-cut works crafted on delicate paper. Australian artists from the 2019 run share the space with works from fellow creative souls from as far afield as Scotland, South Korea and the States, as well as spots closer to home, including Indonesia and New Zealand. The largest stencil event in the world began back in 2009 with a small grant from Marrickville Council of $500 and has grown to be a truly global event with a hefty $10,000 prize pot attached. So head along to Hurstville and take a squiz at some of the the whiziest works in stencil art while they're in town.  Love this? Also check out our guide to the best street art in Sydney. 

Take a look at pictures of placards held aloft during Australia’s Black Lives Matter marches and you’ll see that even in the midst of tragedy, there’s a fierce sense of dark comedy at play too. And even empowered joy. We all need a bit more of the latter in our lives this year. Thankfully the Art Gallery of NSW has you covered. Opening on October 24 and running to sometime in 2021, new exhibition Joy gathers fun art from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creatives from across the Central Desert. Collecting everything from Queenie Kemarre’s cute bird statues carved in wood and painted in brilliant pink hues, to Judith Inkamala terracotta magpie adorned pots, and films too, it’s a celebration of the brighter side of life. As the AGNSW sees it, although it’s important to tell the stories of history and people that are uncomfortable, in need of critical dialogue or deeply embedded in culture and its practices, sharing joy is just as necessary, and we often forget to make space for that in our appraisal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. Want more NAIDOC Week suggestions? Read our top tips here.