Exhibitions

On the Fringes is a display of selected works from Therese Sweeney’s multimedia project of the same name, which documents the social and cultural history of local southwest Sydney communities in the 90’s and early 00’s. 

Sweeney’s collection provides intimate glimpses into day-to-day life on the outskirts of Sydney. Despite the diversely rich cultures and traditions depicted within her collection, Sweeney draws attention to the universally shared theme of belonging present in each household and community in her images. 

On the Fringes is Sweeney’s contribution and celebration of her local Green Valley community. 

“My motivation was to challenge and redress the long history of negative press and social research depicting my community of origin as bleak and desperate. I aimed to produce images that were born out of collaboration, research, respect and relationship with residents." - Therese Sweeney, photographer. 

The exhibition displays a series of snapshots from Sweeney’s collection, transported into life-like scenes with which the audience can engage. Moving through the exhibition space, we are granted a rare insight into the domestic life of each individual depicted in the images and grasp how they connected with the world around them.   

The space asks us to notice the places, people, and relationships that seem familiar or challenges us, to compare the past and the present, and to reflect on what connection and community looks like today.  

The exhibition will also host work from South-west Sydney artist Tom Yousif. Building upon the concepts of connection and community explored in Sweeney’s images, Yousif will partake in live art installation, creating a piece that aims to draw parallels between the modern-day suburban streetscapes of his home suburb Green Valley, to the processional way of the ancient city of Babylon. 

Collaboratively, the exhibition draws attention to the impact major world events, technological advances and drastic changes in societal behaviour have in altering our experiences of the world from decade to decade whilst some universal truths continue to stay the same: we all yearn to belong.  

Sweeney's historical snapshots of the vast community and Yousif’s artistic expression of his personal experience challenges you to reflect on what personal connection and community looks like today. 

This exhibition presents a selection of silkscreen colour plates from the Josef Albers 1963 book Interaction of color held in the UTS Library special collections. 

In this publication, Albers explores the complexities of colour theory through 42 double-page screen prints, alongside firsthand commentary. The book is considered to be one of the most fundamental analytical texts in contemporary art education. Despite creating controversy amongst academics and artists at the time, Albers’ text is used as a handbook for artists, teachers and students to this day. 

Although much of the research for the Interaction of color was entirely his own, Albers collected and documented many of his students’ works over the course of his career. Notably the Free Studies series showcases Albers’ encouragement of his students to pursue self-expression and independent experimentation, free from the confinements of the classroom. 

The exhibition showcases the results of Albers’ studies and how each colour plate or study demonstrates the principles of colour interaction and relativity through an experimental approach. As you move through the space each study  paves the way for the experiments that follow and showcase Albers’ adventurous, spiritual and intellectual exploration of colour. 

Learn more about Josef Albers and the Interaction of color in the Library catalogue.

Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the UTS Writers’ Anthology, this exhibition showcased the publication of two special edition books Bloom and 40! Forty years of the UTS Writers’ Anthology. 

For the past four decades, the Writers’ Anthology has been renowned for the publication and national distribution of reviewed journals, highlighting the works of new innovative Australian writers from the UTS Creative Writing program.  

This years’ editions Bloom and 40! are no exceptions and once again provide readers with the chance to explore the creative minds of the emerging Australian writers within our community.  

A little about the two editions of the anthology:  

• Bloom dares to traverse fiction by collating 37 unique contributions to the Writer’s Anthology that celebrate life in the wake of tumult. This edition celebrates creative voices and continues to thrive despite the downpour of yesteryear. Honoring both mundanity and the extraordinary Bloom allows readers to reflect on their own life and grow with the anthology.  
• 40! Forty years of the UTS Writers’ Anthology celebrates the last forty years of the UTS Writers’ Anthology, displaying short fiction, poetry, personal essay, and non-fiction from the past thirty-five issues. All writing is produced by students of the UTS Creative Writing Program and features a foreword from Miles Franklin Award winner Melissa Luchashenko and a fascinating history by Dr Delia Falconer who has been teaching the program for sixteen years. 

40th Anniversary of the UTS Writers' Anthology celebratory video featuring writers from the UTS Writers Program.

A 40th Anniversary Celebration was hosted alongside the exhibition, celebrating 40 years of the UTS Writers’ Anthology and the launch of the 2021 edition, Bloom. 

Attending were the students who have contributed to this annual literary event, and guests including the esteemed academics and alumni who have contributed to past editions of the anthology. 

Select authors from the latest edition Bloom were awarded annual prizes and read extracts from their work. 

40th Anniversary Celebration event recording, including a panel hosted by UTS alumnus and author Sam Twyford-Moore with UTS Honorary Associate – Associate Professor Debra Adelaide, and past contributors Patti Miller, Zahid Gamieldien and sydney khoo, whose work is collected in the anniversary edition.

‘The Urban Field Naturalists’ Guide to Lesser-Known Pollinators’ is an exhibition of visualisations, assemblages of design objects and digital augmentation which explore ways to tell stories about the natural world. The exhibition plays with the trope of ‘cabinets of curiosities’ to reimagine the naturalist tradition in the 21st century. 

This exhibition is an outcome of the Urban Field Naturalist Project (UFN), a collaboration with researchers from the environmental humanities and life sciences. The UFN Project has two main aims. First, to encourage people to engage with the biodiversity around them through community storytelling. Second, to reimagine the naturalist tradition for the 21st Century. Related to this second aim, two of the design research questions posed through the exhibition are:

1. How might we begin to reimagine the cabinet of curiosities without removing specimens from their place of origin? Is it possible to retain the wunder, minus the kammer?
2. How might we visualise and materialise ecological information beyond scientific charts and diagrams, into objects and spaces that can be encountered, experienced, inhabited?

A program of talks and workshops with designers, philosophers, scientists, and writers will run alongside the exhibition. More details coming soon!

Design and curation: Andrew Burrell and Zoë Sadokierski, Spec Studio, UTS School of Design 

Participating artists: Adam France, Cecilia Heffer, Donna Sgro, EggPicnic (Camila De Gregorio and Christopher Macaluso), Fionn McCabe, GraciaLouise, Katie Dean, Lucy Adelaide, Ross Gibson, Thom van Dooren, Timo Rissanen and Vanessa Berry.

EggPicnic in conversation with Dr John Martin from zoe sadokierski 

Donna Sgro and Cecilia Heffer: On drawing inspiration from nature for their textile design practices from zoe sadokierski 

To end the unprecedented year that was 2020, UTS Library created a moment of reprieve and distraction for our community with Selfie Rooms. Six immersive spaces, inspired by items in the Library's Special Collections, were designed and built creating a place to escape reality and take the perfect photo. 

The following items in Special Collections date from late 1800s to early 1900s and span themes on botany, design, art and education. Although diverse in content, they are demonstrative of fine colour illustration and book plate printing from the era.  

• Asano, Koka. [Oriental textile pattern book]. Japan: s.n., 1905.
• Bing, Samuel. Le Japon artistique: documents d’art et d’industrie. Paris: Librairie centrale des beaux-arts, 1888-1891.
• Cooke, George. The botanical cabinet: consisting of coloured delineations of plants from all countries, with a short account of each, directions for management, illustrator Conrad Loddiges & Sons, London: John and Arthur Arch, 1823.
• Haeckel, Ernst. Kunstformen der Natur. Leipzig; Vienna: Bibliographischen Instituts, 1899.
• Seaby, Alan William. Nelson’s blackboard drawing. London: Thomas Nelson, 1905.
• Wright, Lewis. Light: a course of experimental optics, chiefly with the lantern. London: Macmillan, 1882.

Empty Sky and Made In Isolation were two concurrent exhibitions showcasing student work.

To coincide with the release of the 34th UTS Writers Anthology, Empty Sky, selected pieces from the publication were displayed alongside objects, photographs and artworks that helped bring the stories to life. UTS Writers' Anthology is an annual publication that showcases the best writing from emerging and established writers across UTS. The featured writers included: Lucia Mai, Sophie Serafim, Andrea Kovacic, Judith Morison, Tom Disalvo, Clare Shiu, Georgia Wilde & Zoe Downing.

In 2020, the anthology was put together by the hard working student editorial committee: Paul Anderson, Lily Cameron, Grace Joseph, Amanda Rosso Buckton, Sophie Serafim, Lily Velez and academic advisor Dr Claire Corbett. 

Empty Sky and Made In Isolation were two concurrent exhibitions showcasing student work.

Made In Isolation showcased student work created under the COVID-19 lockdown constraints of Autumn Session 2020. The student writers and creators featured in the exhibition demonstrated their creativity, resilience and adaptability, despite the restrictions; an impressive achievement during these uncertain and turbulent times. The works on display included poetry, photography, photo media and films produced for courses, spanning the Bachelor of Design in Photography, and the Bachelor of Communications in Creative Writing and Media Arts and Production. Themes of the works included personal and emotive responses to the socio-political apocalyptic climate, exploring feelings of anxiety and detachment.

The exhibition presented works by UTS students: Jesse Vega, Zachariah Cutcliffe, Keira Baker, Veronica Moorhouse, Lily Cameron, Tom Disalvo, Fleur Connick & Lynn Chen.

Celebrating 40 years of 2SER 107.3, the community radio station jointly owned by UTS and Macquarie University, this interactive exhibition delved into the rich and vibrant history of the station’s past four decades of broadcast.

2SER (Sydney Educational Radio) launched to the public on 1 October 1979. Over 40 years, the station has grown in size and scope while aiming to represent Sydney as much as possible. 2SER has been a space for learning and innovation throughout its existence - at the forefront of social change, pioneering music scenes, creating award winning documentaries, and training thousands of journalists and other media professionals.

To present this multi-layered history, 2SER conducted 40 original interviews with some of the key players from the station’s past. The exhibition presented these interviews along with a plethora of stories, images, and artefacts from 2SER’s archives.

To mark the opening of the new UTS Blake Library in UTS Central, November 2019, this exhibition celebrated the completion of the UTS City Campus Master Plan  by looking back at the history of our precinct and the architectural accomplishments of the past decade. The exhibition showcased the complexity and significance of the UTS City Campus Master Plan through historical artifacts, photographs, plans, videos, architectural processes, and models.

The exhibition follows the journey of the campus redevelopment, from its announcement in 2008 on UTS’s 20th anniversary, to the realisation of the university’s vision for a world-leading campus at the gateway to downtown Sydney. The campus has evolved strategically in conjunction with, and was one of the catalysts for, the City of Sydney’s development of the wider precinct, creating a connected campus with immediate links to industry and the community. Celebrating the development of six distinctive UTS buildings including the newly completed UTS Central, as well as underground sporting facilities, and a network of revitalised learning and social spaces.