Adelaide University’s Samstag Museum of Art explores the relationship between body and mind for its 2026 exhibition program.
2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength has launched as the Parnati Season (Parnati meaning autumn in Kaurna culture) curated by Ellie Buttrose, and presented by the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide Botanic Gardens and Samstag, with works on display at all three locations.
Across two levels of the Samstag galleries, the pre-eminent survey of contemporary Australian Art includes new work by 24 artists reflecting the diversity of artistic practice across the continent.
Artists include Robert Andrew, Nathan Beard, Lauren Burrow, Francis Carmody, Mark Maurangi Carrol, Milminyina Dhamarrandji, Matthew Teapot Djipurrtjun, George Egerton-Warburton, Prudence Flint, Brian Fuata, D Harding, Matthew Harris, Helen Johnson, Kirtika Kain, Jennifer Mathews, Archie Moore, Josina Pumani, Julie Nangala Robertson, Erika Scott, Joel Sherwood Spring, Charlie Sofo, John Spiteri, Isadora Vaughan and Emmaline Zanelli.
“The 2026 Adelaide Biennial foregrounds how bodily experience and intellectual wonder are intimately entwined in the experience of art,” says Buttrose.
“Samstag is delighted to partner with the Art Gallery of South Australia to present the Adelaide Biennial for the 2026 Adelaide Festival to present this nationally significant survey of contemporary Australian art,” says Samstag Director, Erica Green.
“As South Australia’s largest contemporary art gallery and one of Australia’s leading university museums, fostering an appreciation for the arts and culture and advocating for its importance in all our lives is central to our mission.
“Partnering on the Biennial continues Samstag’s commitment to excellence and presenting cutting-edge contemporary art practice.”
2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength will be followed by a yearlong of exhibitions. For our Kudlila (winter) and Wirltuti (spring) seasons later in the year, Samstag will present:
KUDLILA SEASON: FRIDAY 26 JUNE — FRIDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 2026
Two internationally based Australian artists Jemima Wyman and Ida Sophia highlight human behaviour at a macro and micro scale. Exploring social movements and relational dynamics, these exhibitions draw attention to inherent patterns that foster and thwart connection.
LA-based Australian artist and Samstag Scholar (2005) Jemima Wyman’s (Palawa) practice is a visually and politically charged exploration of camouflage, collective organising, democracy and dissent. This survey exhibition of Wyman’s work spans decades.
Known for her vivid, kaleidoscopic hand-cut collages drawn from her extensive archive of found photographs documenting global protests, Wyman’s complex, maximalist environments channel the upheaval, uncertainty, and distress of protest into a hypnotic and rhythmic harmony of patterned surfaces. Deep Surface is presented in partnership with QUT Art Museum.
Ida Sophia: Patience and Penitentia
Ida Sophia’s installation and durational performance Patience and Penitentia explores the painful and damaging experience of relational withdrawal – the silent treatment – in a work that enacts the power dynamics, strategies of control and form of punishment at its core. This work by the Berlin-based South Australian artist expands on her earlier interest in performance and the exploration of extreme psychological states and limits of endurance.
Over the span of the exhibition, a participatory ritual performed by the artist and a select number of performers will see Sophia incorporate elements of sound, language, movement and gesture to publicly transfigure private suffering through collective release.
WIRLTUTI SEASON: FRIDAY 9 OCTOBER — FRIDAY 4 DECEMBER 2026
Across moving image, installation and painting, Wirltuti season premieres three new works that each explore cultural heritage, positing the artist as a storyteller and art as a vessel for collective stories.
Robert Fielding: Melting Point
Premiering a major new work, recipient of the 2026 Samstag Jeffrey Smart Commission Robert Fielding (Yankunytjatjara / Western Arrente), presents an ambitious moving image and sculptural installation.
Reclaiming and transforming a salvaged car wreck from Country, the exhibition continues Fielding’s interest in the car as a potent and resonant symbol and tool in contemporary Aboriginal culture speaking to a way of being with Country, staying connected to family lines spanning the continent and the ability participate in ceremony.
Working with specialist glass makers and foundry to realise the work, Fielding’s repainted, weather worn vehicle adorned with text and graphic markings holds layered meaning, and stories of the land.
Fielding’s consultative, custodial art-making approach – beginning with Country, understanding of culture and involving community – imbues this interdisciplinary work with a palpable and powerful sense of presence.
Through Line: Naina Sen / Naveed Farro / Harrison Hall
In an immersive, sculptural multi-channel installation, three collaborators: Naina Sen (NT), Naveed Farro (Vic) and Harrison Hall (Vic) have reimagined the cultural connections between West Asia and South Asia in this third Adelaide Film Festival EXPAND commission.
Through Line focuses on Indo-Persian influences and contemporary legacies of Indo-Persian architecture celebrating the pluralistic ethos and uniquely communal and secular atmosphere of the courtyard of the Sufi shrine, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah in Delhi, India. Suffused with Sufi poetry, dance and Qawaali music, the work blends the singing of a Qawwali, an ensemble of singers, used to induce a mystical trance to reflect on the continuity of tradition, hybridity and endurance of cultural forms. Through Line is presented in partnership with the 2026 Adelaide Film Festival.
Keith Piper: 22 Yards of Earth
Co-founding BLK Art Group, collective instrumental to the British Black Arts Movement in the 1980s, Birmingham-born artist Keith Piper’s art practice responds to social and political issues, historical relationships and geographical sites. Adopting a research driven approach, and using a variety of media, over the past four and a half decades his work has traversed painting, photography, installation and digital media.
In this newly commissioned work, 22 Yards of Earth – a Samstag co-commission with the Biennale of Sydney – Piper turns his attention to cricket, the culturally laden team sport dating back to the 16th century. Exploring cricket as a symbol of national identity and global colonial conquest this installation incorporates moving images to deftly examine colonial legacies, race, class and social relationships.
22 Yards of Earth is commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and Samstag Museum of Art with generous assistance from Mark and Louise Nelson, and British Council in Sydney.
Samstag Museum of Art is located at Adelaide University’s City West campus, which is an easy 15-minute walk from the city centre. Free city trams operate daily. Samstag is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, and every day during the Adelaide Festival.
Visit the website for more information.
Image: Brian Fuata, Errantucation (mist opportunities), 2021 / Performance improvisations commissioned for ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT10). QAGOMA, Brisbane, 2021. © the artist courtesy of artist and Sumer; photo: C Callistemon, QAGOMA.
Media contacts:
Erica Green, Director Samstag Museum of Art. Mobile: +61 438 821 239. Email: erica.green@adelaide.edu.au
Lara Pacillo, Media Officer, Adelaide University. Mobile: +61 403 659 154. Email: lara.pacillo@adelaide.edu.au