Inside Pompeii: Origins of a European Way of Life Photographs by Luigi Spina Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery 5 Apr—29 Jun
Feature Chinese Restaurant Playground: Steffie Yee shares off-menu stories Steffie Yee spent many years gathering stories and images of her family’s history in the town of Branxton, NSW where her parents successfully ran a Chinese restaurant. Yee’s solo exhibition Chinese Restaurant Playground, which celebrates playfulness and joy, recently opened at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery. Jasmeet Kaur Sahi
Preview Wang Zhiyuan and our roles as little dictators In an era of information excess and manipulation, Wang Zhiyuan’s Dictator Training Centre exhibiting at Passage Gallery, reminds us of contemporary art’s potential as an open-ended platform for reflection, dialogue, and shared authorship. Michelle Wang
Book Reviews Shelf Portraits: Critical Currents In our ongoing series, Shelf Portraits, Art Guide writers recommend the books—recently published or deserving of more attention—that shed new light on an idea that has long simmered in the art world or has helped them see a familiar medium in a different light. Jane O'Sullivan
Preview Phuong Ngo’s ancestral legacies Phuong Ngo’s first major solo exhibition Inheritance, now showing at West Space, spans generations and continents, incorporates objects bought and sold across family lines, and draws on both spiritual and everyday rituals. Bec Gallo
Feature Collaboration as the site of cultural memory In Fairfield City Museum & Gallery’s latest exhibition Within Heaven and Earth, seven artists, including Linda Sok and Tianli Zu, use storytelling as a device to explore personal identity and cultural memory. Jasmeet Kaur Sahi
News Singing Spears Home Mungari, a landmark exhibition at Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum, marks the return of the Gweagal spears to their ancestral country while speaking to the constellation of relationships that knit together people, objects and place. Tyson Frigo