Explore the expanding world of contemporary art with Outer Space
Brisbane’s art scene continues to boom, with a cavalcade of creatives working to shape our city into a paradise of artistic pleasures. If you’re interested in diving into the world of contemporary art, Outer Space is the place for you. Founded by Brisbane creatives Llewellyn Millhouse and Caity Reynolds, Outer Space is committed to fostering a sustainable creative community in Brisbane, supporting emerging, early- and mid-career artists across its two spaces in Fortitude Valley. Outer Space has a bumper year planned full of immersive installations, cutting-edge exhibitions and revolutionary residences. Read on to learn more …
Outer Space will be hosting eight Main Gallery exhibitions throughout 2025, featuring vibrant mix of open call submissions and invited projects that span digital media, painting, sculpture, and interdisciplinary works. From March 21 to April 19, Sam Harrison will be presenting Fair Dinkies, which parodies and explores the tensions within Australia’s conception of itself as a multicultural nation. After that comes The Riḡorabana, The Balawaia, an immersive exhibition born from years of research into artist Dean Ansell’s Melanesian heritage. Weaving together familial storytelling, fieldwork and cultural practices from Papua Niugini, the project will be at Outer Space from April 25 to May 24. Artists Celine Cheung, Rainer Ciar, Kalanjay Dhir and Fei Gao come together to present Ghost in the Machine from May 30 to June 28. The exhibition explores how fiction, anthropomorphisation and avatars may reflect psychological realities through costume, fanwork paraphernalia and puppetry.
From July 4 to August 2, the exhibition titled Auburn will offer an immersive exploration of landscapes, colours and textures significant to Auburn Station, from Wulli Wulli artist Arabella Walker. By projecting onto all surfaces – including the ceiling and floor – the installation will create an overwhelming sense of immersion, mirroring the intense experience of stepping onto Country for the first time. Adelaide artist Allison Chhorn presents Reflections in the Water from August 8 to September 6. The immersive installation explores the intergenerational process of remembering through fragments of recreated archival material depicting the Cambodian countryside along the Mekong River. A Seat At The โต๊ะ”, from artist Ellamay Khongroj Fitzgerald runs September 12 to October 11, exploring food as a living archive, a vessel through which identity, heritage and culture are shaped and redefined within the Asian diaspora. Finally, from October 17 to November 22, Rae Haynes presents Subversive Threads, an exhibition of new works that examine genealogical, personal and political connections to innovative British textile maker and educator Mary Linwood, through myriad means including participatory workshops in the gallery.
This year Outer Space is also partnering with Urban Art Projects (UAP), a world-leading art consultancy and manufacturer, for an Emerging Artist Residency featuring Amanda Bennetts. Amanda is a new media and installation artist whose work delves into themes of illness, wellness, care and disability, drawing from her own experience with a progressive neurological disease and a rare muscular condition.
“I explore the collision of clinical, disability and wellness aesthetics, the stark precision of stainless steel against the yielding softness of velvet, towel-like tubes entangled with a steel grid, and clear plastic-coated furniture covering the softness of velvet,” says Amanda. “My work plays with material perception, testing how textures, finishes and arrangements shift meaning.”
As part of the residency Amanda will spend several weeks participating in workshops from UAP’s team of expert curators, designers and fabricators, as well as working independently to ideate, experiment and develop her projects with this new knowledge. These explorations during the residency will equip Bennetts to conceptualise large-scale sculptures and installations
in her future artistic practice.
“Being here as an artist in residence, the Outer Space X UAP collaboration has given me the conviction that my artistic practice can belong in shared spaces,” says Amanda.
Tess Bakharia, UAP’s Assistant Curator, says they are excited to support Outer Space through this residency program. “This collaboration, which provides local artists, including Amanda Bennetts, with the tools, time and space required to push artistic boundaries at the most pivotal points of their careers, speaks to the heart of both UAP and Outer Space’s core values. UAP is particularly excited by the local connection to Outer Space and the enduring effect of this residency on Brisbane’s arts industry at a grass-roots level.”
After sunset, the exterior of Outer Space’s main gallery at the Judith Wright Arts Centre will be illuminated with vibrant, large-scale artworks, allowing passersby to partake in a peek of public art. The Facade Exhibition Program will project works from ten artists across 2025-26, including Dylan Bolger, Sirena Varma and Katherine Palella, and Uncle Noel Blair. Designed to break down the walls between the gallery and the public, the program will feature a rich variety of digital and 2D art forms, including illustration, painting, collage, animation, photography, film and 3D modelling.
To learn more about Outer Space’s plans for 2025, check out the website here.
This article was written with help from our friends at Outer Space.
Image 1: Jordan Azcune, Miguel Aquilizan, Jessica Dorizac, Material Culture in a Material World, 2023. Outer Space Gallery Exhibition, Photograph by Markus Ravik
Subscribe for updates
Image 2: Phoebe Paradise, MALLRATS, 2022. Outer Space Facade Exhibition, Photograph by Cian Sander
Image 3: Torin Francis, When do we look out, when do we look in, 2024. Outer Space Gallery Exhibition, Photograph by Louis Lim
Image 4: Amanda Bennetts, Steel Making, 2025. UAP Residency, Photograph by UAP | Urban Art Projects
Image 5: Amanda Bennetts, Independent Workshop Time, 2025. UAP Residency, Photograph by UAP | Urban Art Projects