New Religion fosters a dialogue between works of art and objects from both historical and contemporary origins. It intentionally places historic works within a modern context, asking us to consider why they continue to captivate us. The project will commission eight contemporary artists and collectives and present their work alongside loans from significant state and national collections.
Across the exhibition, contemporary artists engage with religious imagery, belief systems, and symbolic forms to consider how ideas of faith, power, and meaning take shape. Historic modes of devotion, morality, and reverence are reimagined through contemporary materials and perspectives, creating new points of connection between past and present. Some works reflect on belief as a source of comfort, continuity, and purpose, while others question its role in shaping authority, behaviour, and social structures. By bringing contemporary commissions into dialogue with historic works, New Religion invites reflection on why certain images, rituals, and systems of belief continue to resonate, and how they are reinterpreted across time, cultures, and lived experience.
Artwork loans supported by National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW and Chau Chak Wing Museum.
