Libraries, Museums and Galleries

Nestled in the heart of Footscray in Melbourne's inner-west sits a trove of African art, literature and history. Its founder hopes it will become a source of community strength for generations to come.

Blending contemporary artwork with archival material, a new exhibition at the National Museum in Canberra promises to captivate and educate visitors about the little-known history of Aboriginal-Chinese people in Australia.

The Booleroo Steam and Traction Preservation Society is restoring a Fowler Road Locomotive believed to be the last of its kind in the world.

A regional Australian gallery isn't the first place you'd expect to find a neo-baroque masterpiece that belonged to a Russian tsar. Yet, with some mystery surrounding it, that's just what's happened. 

In the lush NSW South Coast bush, Bundanon Art Museum is showcasing the results of a poignant question posed to artists: what can we learn from the environment that surrounds us?

An impressive exhibition full of hundreds of flowers — painted, sculpted and woven into dresses — makes a powerful point about our connection to the environment, and the value of slowing down to appreciate it.

Monash University has indefinitely postponed an exhibition — due to open in May — featuring the work of Lebanese Australian artist Khaled Sabsabi at its gallery, MUMA.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service hopes an exhibition in Broken Hill will keep the organisation alive and draw more tourists to the outback city.

Maud Page, the gallery's deputy director, will take on the top job next week, following the resignation of outgoing director Michael Brand in October, after 13 years.

Unplanned staff absences are being blamed for several closures of libraries in the ACT this year, leaving some library users concerned.

A successful open day prompts new calls for the South Australian government to reopen a historic jail in the Flinders Ranges permanently as a tourist attraction.

The first museum in Australia dedicated to the Vietnamese refugee experience will be built in Melbourne's western suburbs.

Intelligence agencies, politicians and spies offer support for a proposed National Spy Museum in Canberra, which would portray the nation's history of espionage and pay tribute to those who have spied.

Step inside the Asia Pacific Triennial (APT), QAGOMA's flagship program. This year it features more than 500 works from artists in more than 30 countries, including Nepal, Hawaii, Aotearoa New Zealand, Cambodia, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Timor-Leste and Uzbekistan.

Will a massive expansion of the Australian War Memorial allow it to evolve or destroy what makes it special?

Unicorns have been both revered and attacked in art over centuries. And one depiction in particular has an unusual connection to a precious antique manuscript held in Melbourne.

The national symbol for Australia's fallen soldiers has taken large sums of money from weapons makers, a move former staff call "inappropriate".

Some of Frida Kahlo's clothing was kept under lock and key for 50 years. Now, garments holding "little traces of her daily life" will be on display in regional Victoria.

The acclaimed portrait of actor Heath Ledger has only been exhibited briefly in the past 17 years. That has artist Vincent Fantauzzo and the late actor's father asking questions.

Statues and hundreds of culturally significant artefacts have been returned to Indonesia by the Dutch, but with close to 30 museum theft cases in recent decades authorities move to ensure these don't end up in an illegal private collection.