Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)

For generations, humans have pondered the invention of a time machine. How would one make it? What it would uncover? And how would we use it? As it turns out, acclaimed photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto holds the answer in his hands. His time machine? The humble camera. A brand new exhibition showcasing the work of the influential Japanese artist has just opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, bringing together close to 100 of Sugimoto's most important works, dating back to the 1970s and through to the present day. Chronicling five decades of his practice, it's his largest exhibition to date – and it’s exclusive to Sydney.  Sugimoto's work know no bounds, with subjects in Time Machine ranging from prominent figures like Princess Diana and religious icons like the Buddha, to architecture and the sublime of Earth’s oceans and natural phenomena. He studied in both Tokyo and New York, and now splits his time between the two culturally-rich cities. His ventures have also expanded well beyond the two cities he calls home, into Italy, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and the Arctic. Sugimoto’s approach to photography has stretched and reshaped our ideas about how photographs record time, light and space. He finds joy in the art of traditional forms of photography dating back to the 19th century, and many of his pieces are shot on a large-format camera and developed with darkroom chemicals he’s mixed himself.  You can see Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine at MCA Australia, Circula

If you’ve ever heard the words “feminist” and “Australian contemporary artist” in the same sentence, then you’ve probably also heard the name Julie Rrap. With a career spanning more than 40 years, she’s a major figure in the art world who is known for stripping down and incorporating her own body into her multidisciplinary art practice – in which she examines representations of the female nude in art and popular culture over time. You have the chance to have an intimate encounter with Rrap’s work at the the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) with Past Continuous, a new exhibition featuring both new and past work.  “When I looked in art history books, particularly, there were lots of pictures of women – nude women mostly – and not a lot of women artists,” said Rrap, when speaking with Time Out Sydney’s Alannah Le Cross.  “At the same time I was reading people like Simone de Beauvoir, and I was just beginning that little journey of my own about what it is to be a woman in the world,” she said, also adding that at the time she was studying literature and was quite active in the anti-Vietnam War protest movement. “So I guess this show, for me, represents that back history for me… there was always this way in which the female body was always the subject, but they were never themselves a subject.” Rrap’s landmark 1982 installation work – ‘Disclosures: A Photographic Construct’ – has been drawn from the MCA Collection for the exhibition, and this is where your journey begins. The firs

In its 33rd year, the MCA’s Primavera is back in Circular Quay to showcase the brilliance of young artists under 35. This year’s exhibition, curated by Lucy Latella, revolves around the generational struggle Australians face to maintain their diverse cultures.  Two of the selected artists hail from Victoria, one from each of NSW, the ACT and SA, but their backgrounds, and the cultural stories they have to share, extend well beyond (colonial) Australian borderlines. Here’s a rundown of the art on offer... Chun Yin Rainbow Chan is a Hong Kongese-Australian artist from. Her background in music bleeds into her art, where she explores the mistranslation of women’s folk songs from the Weitou people.  Walgalu and Wiradjuri man Aiden Hartshorn hails from Wagga Wagga and Canberra. He works with modern materials like aluminium to reference the man-made industries that play havoc with his peoples’ ancestral connections to the river systems.  Teresa Busuttil splits her time between Adelaide and Malta, where she salvages materials like seashells to pay homage to her father’s migration from Malta to Australia. Her other works traverse the experience of young people under various colonial and contemporary powers in Malta. Sarah Ujmaia draws on her family’s experience of migrating to Melbourne from northern Iraq. Her interactive piece And thank you to my baba for laying the timber floor is an array of pavers that represent both the marketplace back home, and the evolution of oral languages.