Melbourne Sculpture Biennale is a non-profit project founded in 2024 in Naarm/Melbourne, dedicated to deepening engagement with critically engaged sculptural practices and creating greater opportunities for contemporary sculptural artists.
The inaugural Melbourne Sculpture Biennale was held in October 2024 at the Villa Alba Museum, a heritage mansion and garden in Kew. Titled The Burden of Objects, the exhibition brought together nineteen artists based in greater Naarm/Melbourne whose practices engage with the physical, material and labour-intensive dimensions of sculpture. The exhibition foregrounded artists working with costly or demanding materials and processes, and engaging with traditions of sculptural production including carving, moulding, casting, modelling and assemblage.
Following the success of its inaugural edition, Melbourne Sculpture Biennale returns in October 2026 with Soft Systems, bringing together twenty leading contemporary artists for an exhibition of site-responsive sculpture and installation at Billilla Mansion in Brighton.
Melbourne Sculpture Biennale 2026: Soft Systems considers the complex and interconnected systems that shape contemporary life. The participating artists' diverse approaches offer different ways of critically examining these systems, and their impact on people, culture and the environment. Their works reveal systems as both tangible and intangible: structures that organise our lives, distribute resources and power, shape identities and influence our relationships with one another and the environment.
In dialogue with Billilla’s architecture, history and landscape, Soft Systems considers sculpture as a form of storytelling – one capable of making complex systems visible, material and spatial. The exhibition offers a broad survey of contemporary sculptural practice in Naarm/Melbourne while inviting audiences to consider the often-unseen forces and connections that shape the world around us.
Melbourne Sculpture Biennale 2026 is proudly presented with the support of our Principal Partner, Bayside City Council.
For information about Billilla Mansion, visit the Bayside City Council website.
Directors: Adam Stone and Laura Couttie
Project Manager: Pip Griffin
Marketing Manager: Brigitte Trobbiani
Curatorial Assistant: Giulia Lallo
Design: Denny Louis ↗
Website: Simon Massey di Vallazza ↗
Natalie Bannister is a partner at Hall & Wilcox, one of Australia's leading independent law firms. She is also a dedicated collector and arts advocate with a particular love of sculpture and Australian art. Natalie holds an LLB (Hons), a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Politics, and a Graduate Diploma in Public Policy – a combination that reflects the intersection of law, creativity and public life that defines her career. Natalie's passion for the visual arts runs deep. In 2014 she founded the Hall & Wilcox Art Exhibition and Acquisition Program, a national initiative that provides opportunities for emerging and unrepresented Australian artists. She has also consulted on commissions and acquisitions for property developments in Singapore, advising on projects that have placed public artworks by leading artists across the city. She previously served on the Board of the University of Melbourne’s Dax Centre.
Nathan Beard is a multidisciplinary artist who draws from his Australian-Thai heritage to unpack the porous and precarious influences of culture and memory. In exploring the slippery intersection of family history, archives and broad cultural signifiers of ‘Thainess’, Beard’s work articulates the complexities surrounding authenticity and diasporic identity. Recent exhibition highlights include 2026 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Yield Strength, Art Gallery of South Australia and Samstag Museum of Art (2026); TarraWarra Biennial 2025: We Are Eagles, TarraWarra Museum of Art (2025); Melbourne Sculpture Biennale: The Burden of Objects (2024); and A Puzzlement, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (2023) and Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (2022). Nathan is represented by FUTURES, Naarm/Melbourne, and AVA, Boorloo/Perth.
Dr David Clouston is an avid collector of Australian contemporary art. With his partner Dr Michael Schwarz, he has developed close relationships with artists, curators, and institutions. They have donated artworks and funds to many of Victoria’s principal museums and have made significant philanthropic contributions to contemporary art practice. Notably, they provided a repurposed Collingwood factory to Gertrude Contemporary to establish Gertrude Glasshouse, including exhibition spaces, offices, and an upstairs studio. Their support has also included co-sponsorship of the Stonehouse Glasshouse artist residency in France and seed funding for the inaugural Melbourne Sculpture Biennale in 2024.
Melissa Keys is a contemporary art curator and writer with more than twenty years of experience working in leading museums, galleries, and art spaces nationally and internationally. She is currently Senior Curator at Heide Museum of Modern Art, and was formerly Senior Curator, Art Museums and Collections, at the University of Melbourne and the inaugural Curator of Buxton Contemporary in Naarm/Melbourne. She has contributed to and edited numerous publications about art and contemporary culture, and has extensive experience working in close collaboration with a diverse array of artists, collectives, and organisations to realise ambitious programs, exhibitions and initiatives.
James McGrath has had a career championing creativity through communication and understanding the mercurial, disproportional value of originality. A veteran of advertising and marketing, including as Creative Chairman of Clemenger BBDO (Agency of the decade, Cannes Lions Global Agency of the year), BBDO/Omnicom Global Board Member, Jury President at Cannes Lions, D&AD (UK), One Show (NY) and AWARD Awards Hall of Fame inductee. He is a past Board Member of the University of Melbourne’s Humanities Foundation Board, a current Board Member of the Melbourne Art Foundation and the Chair of Heartscapes.