Explore humanity's stories through our on-site exhibitions, displays, events and more.
Looking to explore the museum from your sofa? We are committed to expanding our offering beyond the museum's walls, so keep an eye out for digital resources, virtual exhibitions and more within these pages, or follow us on social media for much more!
Exhibitions
Fault Lines: Imagining Indigenous futures for colonial collections
Li Ka Shing Gallery
6 December 2024 - 21 December 2025
Museums are sites of both historic fracture and future possibility. Through interventions with historic objects, artistic responses, and new research, this exciting new exhibition asks how we might cultivate relationships between Indigenous communities and museums around the care of colonial-era collections.
Temporary displays
Contemporary Gweagal spears by Rod Mason
Maudslay Gallery
In dialogue with the new display of Kamay spears now open at the Chau Chak Wing Museum in Sydney, a new display is now open at MAA of three contemporary spears, made by Senior Elder of the Gweagla Clan, Dharawal Nation, Rod Mason.
Permanent displays
People & Stuff: A Subversive Collaboration
Andrews Gallery
Staff, academics, and visitors have been adding their graffiti contributions to our large-scale collaborative painting, representing their understanding of the collections, how they got here, and what they mean to them.
This vibrant project seeks to map relationships between the past, ourselves, artefacts and places.
Pacific Currents: New Displays from Oceania in the World Anthropology Gallery
Pacific Currents showcases MAA’s exceptional and wide-ranging Oceanic collections, which originate from throughout the Pacific and date from the late 18th century to the present day.
Events and workshops
The Music & Poetry of Queen Idia the Musical - A Work in Progress Sharing
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
4 April 2025, 6PM - 7:45PM
Experience the creative evolution of Queen Idia the Musical in this exclusive work-in-progress event. Discover how history and creativity come together to reimagine the story of the warrior Queen in a bold, cross-cultural production which showcases a vibrant fusion of spoken word poetry and Afrobeats. This is a free event, but booking is required.
New Horizons: Indigenous Collecting, Filming, Exhibiting
Hybrid
14-16 May 2025
What makes a collection of material and/or digital things an Indigenous collection? What makes a film an Indigenous film? And what makes an exhibition and its curatorial approach an Indigenous exhibition? This symposium tackles these key questions.
The Sensational Museum at MAA
Andrews Gallery
We are working with a small team of people with lived experiences of disability to develop a multi-sensory display as part of The Sensational Museum project.
Kiribati Dancers Krista Dixon and Chloe Karea at the opening for the exhibition Pacific Currents. 5 July 2018. Photography by Josh Murfitt.
Past Events
Details of past events at MAA can be found on our Past Events page>>
