Our strategic approach to commissioning public art recognises the need to build capacity and skills, provide opportunities for local artists and celebrate our diversity. We encourage community conversations through arts in the public realm and aim to elevate our city’s cultural and creative richness.

Our Vision

We want a capital city where creativity is amplified. Where talent, skill and tradition are nurtured and elevated for the enrichment of all.

Lightbox Exhibitions

Darwin is lighting up the city with the Lightbox Exhibitions program.

Lightbox Exhibitions works with Darwin lead artists and creative businesses as curators to showcase original artworks, encourage community dialogue around topical themes and invigorate our public spaces. It is an outdoor professional exhibition platform for local artists, including emerging, mid-career and long term established creatives.

Ten purpose-built lightboxes host temporary exhibitions that change every six months. 

The lightboxes are located in three sites across Darwin:

• The Mall in the city centre hosts two double-sided lightboxes at each end
• Dragonfly Carpark hosts three single-sided lightboxes (Chinatown)
• Nightcliff Pool hosts three single-sided lightboxes

Current Exhibition: Beyond Biodiversity

Exhibitions dates: March – August 2025

Beyond Biodiversity is the newest series to be installed in City of Darwin’s Lightbox Exhibitions. Created and curated by botanical artist Anastasia Maximova from local business LetPlantsBe this exhibition features 10 watercolour-based works of native flora found thriving within Darwin’s rich biodiversity. 

Beyond Biodiversity aims to celebrate a selection of native plant species found in the Casuarina Coastal Reserve and the greater Darwin region. The series hopes to draw attention to the unique properties of each specimen and their integral roles in our environment. Anastasia is passionate in sharing the colour and beauty of native environments, through the precision of botanical artistry techniques. She is dedicated in her support for maintaining sustainable practices in the Top End and her work as a visual artist.

Inspired by her research for the vivid biodiverse and natural world that she is enchanted by Anastasia invites viewers to perceive the lively native beauty that is flourishing all around us in our local environment.

Anastasia Maksimova is an award-winning botanical artist, educator, and researcher with a PhD in scientific environmental communication through visual arts. Her work celebrates the unique nature of the Top End and advocates for botanical art and sustainable development.

We are excited to work with Anastasia to present Beyond Biodiversity and continue to light up our city with local art.

10 lightboxes are located at three sites across Darwin and every 6 months feature new exhibitions by local artists and creative businesses.

To find out more about Anastasia and her work, visit LetPlantsBe

Past exhibitions

Iconic Territory

Exhibitions dates: September 2024 - February 2025

Photographic artworks by Helen Orr.

Left to right: Maku, Fabulous Alice, Horse Rider, Cliff Jumper.

Iconic Territory is the latest series to be installed in City of Darwin’s Lightbox Exhibitions. Curated and created by Helen Orr, from local creative business Helspix, this exhibition is the first to feature photographic artworks in the Lightboxes.

Iconic Territory offers a lens into the Northern Territory’s unique subcultures, events, and communities. This series captures the essence of the Top Ends vibrant energy from Drag culture and bush tucker expeditions, to family reunions and outback horse races. Curated by Helen Orr, a Darwin-based photographer, the exhibition celebrates the diverse personalities and landscapes of the vast regions.

With a deep love for the Territory, Helen’s work provides an insightful portrayal of its people and places, reflecting her exceptional storytelling and photographic skill. Iconic Territory can be seen any time day or night from September 2024 – February 2025.

City of Darwin is honoured to work with Helen Orr from Helspix for the Iconic Territory series.

Read more about Helen and Iconic Territory here.

GESTURES: Celebrating 10 Years of The Free Space Studio

Exhibitions dates: March - August 2024 

Top row left to right:
John by Annie Moors, Untitled by John Milikens, Floral by Angelique Martin, Girl in a Bike Helmet - Like in Nature, by Donovan Mota. 
Middle row left to right:
Collecting Sea Glass by Abigail Marralngurra, Nature Undisturbed by Manoli Lafazanis, Holiday by Jim Simpson. 
Bottom row left to right:
Maningrida Family by Tara Darcy, Night Sky by Warren Garrawitja, Untitled by Leigh Zarimis.

Gestures: Celebrating 10 Years of The Free Space Studio is the latest series curated by Arts Access Darwin for the Lightbox Exhibitions Program.  This installation explores the significance of gestures as forms of communication which move beyond verbal. The imagery created by this diverse group of artists is suggestive of the breadth of human feeling with autobiographical, landscape and abstraction works presented together. 

The Gestures artworks tell many different stories. The artists share their explorations of deep cultural connections, longing for home and country, relationships, family, friendships, love, loss, communities, diversity, movement, and expression. 

The Free Space program looks at studio practice as a process of creative perception, a means of gaining self-understanding and a space for imaginative interactions with interior and exterior worlds.  

Arts Access Darwin is taking the time to commemorate the Free Space Studio, an initiative they have proudly built over 10 years. This is a story of an ongoing commitment to achieving equity for artists with disability. 

The artists featured in this exhibition are:

Tara Darcy Warren Garrawitja John Milikens

City of Darwin is honoured to work with Arts Access Darwin for the Gestures series. 

For more information about Arts Access Darwin and the Free Space Studio see

• Angelique Martin 
• Annie Moors
• Abigail Maralngurra
• Leigh Zarimis 
• Donovan Mota
• Jim Simpson
• Manoli Lafazanis

Bird Story

Bird Story has been curated by The Artful Room for the City of Darwin’s Lightbox Exhibitions program and includes a diverse selection of art works by local, emerging, mid-career and established artists. This collection of artworks explores the connections the artists have with bird life, local places, and the joy and wonder of living together with nature.

Birds are a common presence in the Top End, and a thread we can share as part of calling Darwin home. There’s something about local bird calls, that can tell you that you are home or in a new place. Their presence and sounds can feed into our sense of belonging and cultural connection and inform us of different seasons and patterns in nature. Whether it’s the call of the Bush Stone-Curlew at night, the honk of a Magpie Goose overhead in the wet or the flash of a finch in a backyard, we can be connected by shared experiences of local bird life.

The artists presented in the exhibition are:

• Alison Dowell
• Ange McCann-Bateman
• Carla Russo
• Catherine Miles
• Karen Fletcher
• Kathryn Dwyer
• Leslie Nawirridj
• Robert Walter
• Sam Sabaratnam
• Thomas Higgs

The Artful Room are the proud curators of Bird Story. Situated in Nightcliff, The Artful Room runs art workshops for adults, young people, and children. If you’d like to find out more about the exhibition’s artists featured and The Artful Room’s workshop programs visit www.theartfulroom.com.au or contact Carla on 0410 920 168

Born to Be Wild

Exhibitions dates: March - August 2023

‘Born to be Wild’ has been curated by Wild North Arts Inc for the City of Darwin’s Lightbox Exhibitions program (previously called CITYLIFE Platform) and includes a range of art works from local comic art creatives including emerging, mid-career and established artists. This is the first time that the Lightbox Exhibitions program has featured a series dedicated to the comic design genre.

The chosen theme behind ‘Born to be Wild’ delves into both recognisable and wild aspects of living in the top end, as well as other ideas linked to sci-fi realms, mythological creatures, and natural surroundings.

Wild North Arts Inc have selected works that incorporate the theme driven by the selected comic-based artists, many of whom have previously or are yet to feature in their Wild North Comic printed publications.

Wild North Arts Inc are proud to showcase 10 artworks from their selection of artists, some of whom they have worked with previously and others they are excited to be working with for the first time. 

The artists presenting in the exhibition are:

• Ariel Racines
• Emmanuelle Aliotti
• Mat ‘Blue’ Selwyn
• Theofilos Rigas
• Jonathon Saunders
• Dan Hartney
• Rosharn Deslandes
• Todd Williams
• Timothy Parish
• Anneke P. Putri

If you’d like to find out more about the exhibition and the Wild North Comics artists featured, please click here or contact Timothy below:

Timothy Parish

E: wildnorthcomics@gmail.com

Looking Forward

Exhibitions dates: September 2022 - February 2023

‘Looking Forward’ was curated by Proper Creative for the City of Darwin Lightbox Exhibitions Program and included a fresh range of art works from local creatives including newly emerging, mid-career and established artists.

The chosen theme of ‘Looking Forward’ focused on how we look forward and considered how our future is influenced and shaped by our past and the people and stories who came before us.

Proper Creative selected works that incorporated the theme in whatever way the artists had decided to interpret it and had aimed to include as diverse an array of local creatives as possible with regards to culture, gender, identity, experience and style.

Proper Creative, who also manage the Darwin Street Art Festival, were excited to showcase 10 artworks from artists; some of whom they have worked with previously and others they are thrilled to be working with for the first time. 

The artists presented in the exhibition are:

• Dani Heilbronn
• Caleb Dude
• Mim Cole
• Denique Stewart
• Jason Lee
• Levin A. Diatschenko
• Izzy Craven
• Molly Hunt
• Marita Albers
• PRESSplay (Amelia Luscombe and Jocelyn Tribe).

Night and Day

Exhibitions dates: March - August 2022

Night and Day showcases a fresh range of bright works from Charles Darwin University’s (CDU) Creative and Digital Arts students. Sarah Pirrie, our partnering exhibition curator, and CDU Creative and Digital Arts Coordinator has skilfully selected a collection of pieces that respond to the theme Night and Day from the artistic cohort of current digital media students. “Just like the lightboxes which illuminate both day and night our CDU Creatives have considered the thematic of Night and Day through engagement with site; storytelling and placemaking are attuned to personal histories and encounters with Darwin’s living environment”.

The artists presented in the exhibition are:

• Shannan Hayes
• Nikita Kafetzis
• Aaron Othman
• Rafael Lontoc
• Thuy Truong
• Isabelle Henderson
• Jemma Petch

This exhibition series showcases the talent of CDU Creative and Digital arts students in partnership with the City of Darwin.

Home Turf: Adventures in Art

Exhibitions dates: 18 April - October 2021

 

The exhibition, celebrating young Darwin artists, is centred around Youth Week 2021. In collaboration with LAUNCH, Council’s Youth Advisory Committee and exhibition curator, Kezia Dilettoso, who is a young emerging arts worker and current. student at Charles Darwin University.

Ten artworks were selected from a very competitive pool of applicants aged between 12 and 25, and the title of Home Turf: Adventures in Art was chosen by Kezia to reflect the spirit of the artworks chosen.

Nine young artists are presented at the exhibition:

Tisha Tejaya Che Hughson

The exhibition showcases the artistic talent Darwin's young people have to offer.  

• Kaleb Tester (only 12 years old)
• Ifa Shiddiq
• Chlarisse Bala
• Merlin Martin
• Colby Thomas
• Isabella Henderson
• Eren Fraser

Climate Change - 2020

Exhibition dates: Friday  3 April to Friday 4 September  2020

The 2020 exhibition installed within the Citylife Platform has been curated by Darwin Visual Arts Association (DVAA), featuring selected works from their first members exhibition of 2020, Climate. 
DVAA is an artist-run space committed to the advancement of contemporary art that is relevant in the local, national and international context. Its goals are focused on effectively supporting the development of Territory artists through creating comprehensive hands-on opportunities, particularly in terms of curatorial refinement and professional presentation.
DVAA artists have responded to this theme through a mixture of painting, mixed media, ink on paper, printmaking, recycled sculpture and digital print. The featured artists include Alicia Scobie, Anne-marie Cullinan, Alison Worsnop, Fernanda Dupal, David Dalzell, Ella Barrett and Kate Bussey. 

Interim DVAA manager Britt Guy provides the following curatorial rationale: “Climate Change is on the tip of everyone’s tongue from politicians, farmers to climate scientists and young people. Opinions differ but everyone has one. The City of Darwin has declared a climate emergency, and this is a fantastic opportunity for the community to reflect on social, political and environmental elements of this international phenomena.”

Many thanks to Shauna Upton (DVAA Manager), the crew from Sign City Darwin and all participating artists.

Hero image courtesy of Paz Tassone