A Museum for the Future | Ayoung Kim and James Turrell feature in Powerhouse Parramatta opening

Powerhouse Parramatta will open in Sydney, Australia, on November 7, 2026. In what is  one of the largest and most heralded museum launches of the year, the 30,000 square-metre building becomes the fourth element in the Powerhouse group of museums dedicated to the intersection of arts, design, science, and technology in the New South Wales (NSW) capital.

The opening of the museum will be made up of five large-scale exhibitions, containing artworks from the Powerhouse collection and from national and international loans.

Among the artists exhibiting work created with digital tools are James Turrell, with his grand-scale immersive work Shangri La; Ayoung Kim with her speculative fiction film Dancer in the Mirror Field (2025), a co-commission with M+ Hong Kong; and Es Devlin who is presenting The Turning, a five-part experiential commission dedicated to Sydney, its people and its ecologies.

The opening of Powerhouse Parramatta is a significant landmark — described by the Powerhouse group in a press statement as “a museum built for the future” — in a year characterised by the launch or reimagining of art institutions dedicated to the digital era. Other milestones include the opening of the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, Oxford University; the remodelling and enlargement of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the New Museum, New York; the opening of  NODE, in Palo Alto, California, and Refik Anadol Studio’s Dataland museum of AI Arts, in Los Angeles; and the upcoming unveiling of Canyon in downtown Manhattan. There is also the inauguration of Creative Intelligence, a three-day London festival (September 11-13, 2026), that brings together artists, museums, scholars and creative coders to examine the role of digital innovation and AI in reshaping global society.

With a budget of AUS$915m (US$641m), Powerhouse Parramatta is the largest public investment in cultural development in Australia since the building of Jørn Utzon’s transformational Sydney Opera House (1959-73).

The other sites in the Powerhouse group are the historic Sydney Observatory, a museum and site of research; Powerhouse Ultimo, itself the subject of a AUS$250m (US$179m) investment from the NSW government in its renovation and redesign; and Powerhouse Castle Hill, home to Powerhouse’s permanent collection and to its conservation departments.

The opening will take place without the presence in an official position of the museum head, Lisa Havilah, who had led the Parramatta project for the past seven years. John Graham, the arts minister for New South Wales (NSW), confirmed on August 27, 2026, that Havilah, chief executive officer of Powerhouse (formerly the Museum of Applied Arts and Science) since 2019, had stepped aside during “investigations into governance and procurement” at Powerhouse.

On the same day Powerhouse staff received an email from Melanie Hawyes,  secretary of the NSW Department of Creative Industries, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport (DCITHS),  saying that Havilah would be “standing aside” amid an “ongoing investigation into matters relating to governance and procurement practices at the Powerhouse”.

“I recognise that this news comes at a significant time for the organisation, as we prepare for the opening of Powerhouse Parramatta,” Hawyes wrote. “I know how much work, commitment and personal energy all of you have invested in reaching this milestone, and I want to assure you that there will be no impact to the existing programs of work, or the opening on 7 November.”

Abbie Galvin, the NSW government architect, has taken over as chief executive officer of Powerhouse, with Louise Herron, former chief executive officer at Sydney Opera House, as strategic advisor. Another state government official, Cassandra Wilkinson, had been appointed chief operating officer at  Powerhouse in July after public criticism of spending in the lead-up to the new museum’s launch.