groundwork: 50 years of art, artists, education and community

Our 2026 program groundwork honours five decades of art, artists, education and community at UQ Art Museum.

groundwork is the necessary preparation for a future task. Marking our 50th anniversary, and coincident with the envisioning of a new purpose-built space opening in 2027, groundwork reflects on all facets of the museum: its site and form, its processes, its ethic and its creative program. groundwork asks us to locate ourselves on Country, and in place; to acknowledge our past and to imagine our future, and to gather and contemplate our material and relational responsibilities to one another.

Through dialogic and convivial gatherings, groundwork attends to contexts largely unimaginable for art museums and their communities 50 years ago, grappling with networked technologies and climate crises alongside massive shifts in social ideas about inclusion, representation, equity and justice.

We celebrate this milestone by embracing a responsive program across our campuses and our region. groundwork is a prologue and invitation to UQ Art Museum’s next chapter. In deep collaboration and celebration with campus and community, we will host conversations, workshops, pop-ups, masterclasses, events, live performances, training and professional development, opening spaces for thinking, sharing and learning together.

2026 program

Come with Wet Hair, Leave with Wet Feet: Summer Workshop – Minjerribah, February

Against the Protocols of the Civilised Body: Online Reading Group with Access Lab & Library (online) - May

Threads of Identity: Stories of Fashioned Portraits (UQAM x Brisbane Portrait Prize) – May

Against the Protocols of the Civilised Body: Workshop with Access Lab & Library - June

Against the Protocols of the Civilised Body: Performance with Access Lab & Library - June

Indigenising Disability: A Conversation with Uncle Paul Constable Calcott and Dr Samantha Cooms - August

First Nations Art from the Collection: Campus Walking Tours – July + more dates to be announced

50th Birthday Party – August

UQ Arts Block Party

UQAM x MAGSQ Professional Development Workshop – Rockhampton Museum of Art, October

Reflective Motives: Two Days with the Climate Aware Creative Practices Network and UQ Art Museum - November

+ artists and more programs to be announced