Funding is available for national collecting institutions to help them develop and tour their collections nationally and internationally. Funding recipients for 2026–27 are listed below.
Australian National Maritime Museum
Croc! Lost Giants to Living Legends
An exhibition that explores the natural and cultural history of crocodiles including their fascinating biology, ecology, history, and culture, and the issues and opportunities for their conservation and management.
Funding will support the touring of this exhibition to a venue in New South Wales.
Touring funding: $89,518.40
Bundanon Trust
Fantastic forms
Fantastic Forms features over 200 works from the Bundanon Collection in dialogue with new large-scale sculptures by Nabilah Nordin, a series of ceramic figures by Stephen Benwell and stop motion videos by emerging Bundjalung artist Rubyrose Bancroft.
Funding will support the touring of this exhibition to four venues in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania.
Touring funding: $123,240.00
Museum of Australian Democracy
Behind the Lines 2026
This annual exhibition showcases the best Australian political cartoons from the year, celebrating Australian's unique, vibrant and fearless tradition of political cartooning. Engaging, witty and always humorous, these images offer an astutely observed journey through twelve months in our political life.
Funding will support the touring of this exhibition to two venues in New South Wales and Queensland.
Touring funding: $187,917.00
Behind the Lines 2025
This annual exhibition showcases the best Australian political cartoons from the year, celebrating Australian's unique, vibrant and fearless tradition of political cartooning. Engaging, witty and always humorous, these images offer an astutely observed journey through twelve months in our political life.
Funding will support the touring of this exhibition to two venues in South Australia and New South Wales.
Touring funding: $18,292.60
National Archives of Australia
Reception this way: Motels—a Sentimental Journey with Tim Ross
Reception this way is based on the book MOTEL: Images of Australia on holiday by Tim Ross, which was developed in partnership with the National Archives of Australia as an accompaniment to his 2019 touring live show. The content of this book has been expanded to create an engaging photographic exhibition of national interest and relevance.
Funding will support the touring of the exhibition to a venue in New South Wales.
Touring funding: $14,800.00
In Real Life: Inventors, Innovators, and Opportunists
Drawing on the significant design, patent and trademark records held by the National Archives of Australia, the exhibition will include household brand names and lifechanging inventions, celebrating the great and not-so-great inventions and the people and businesses who created them.
Funding will support the touring of the exhibition to two venues in Victoria.
Touring funding: $38,800.00
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
Dreaming Black Screen
This exhibition will explore First Nations storytelling on screen, from early representations through a white lens to collaborations between non-Indigenous and Indigenous filmmakers, to a breakthrough generation of First Nations filmmakers telling their own stories. The exhibition will showcase First Nations filmmakers, their films and career trajectories, and the characters they create to inspire the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander screen creatives.
Funding will support the touring of the exhibition to two venues in Western Australia and Queensland.
Touring funding: $65,240.00
National Gallery of Australia
Grace Cossington Smith
This exhibition presents new insights into the art and working methods of one of Australia's most significant and beloved female modernists. It brings together a selection of Cossington Smith's rarely seen sketchbooks and key paintings from the national collection to provide a deeper insight into her artistic practice, life and character.
Funding will support the touring of the exhibition to two venues in South Australia and Queensland.
Touring funding: $89,446.00
Enjoy This Trip: The Art of Music Posters
This exhibition presents Australian and International music posters from the Gallery's collection spanning the 1960s to 1980s. The tour will celebrate this era and resonate with local audiences interested in art, graphic design, music and more.
Funding will support the touring of the exhibition to three venues in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
Touring funding: $40,632.00
National Museum of Australia
Mr Squiggle and Friends: The Creative World of Norman Hetherington
This exhibition celebrates Norman Hetherington's extraordinary creativity and his creation of Mr Squiggle and his friends, Bill Steamshovel, Blackboard, Gus the Snail, and Rocket. Alongside an array of puppets, colourful theatrical set pieces, costumes, and artworks from Norman's broader career, the exhibition captures the joy and creativity that Hetherington encouraged and inspired in generations of Australians.
Funding will support the touring of the exhibition to three venues in New South Wales.
Touring funding: $90,249.00
Water Spirits
Water Spirits is a 250 square metre touring exhibition that introduces national audiences to the powerful, enigmatic mermaid beings known to Bininj, the First Nations people of Western Arnhem Land. Grounded in song, ceremony, storytelling and contemporary art, the exhibition presents the rich and continuing cultural legacy surrounding a distinctively Australian mermaid tradition..
Funding will support the development of this exhibition for touring.
Development funding: $45,250.00
National Portrait Gallery of Australia
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2026
This annual exhibition promotes the best contemporary photographic portraiture by professional and aspiring Australian photographers.
Funding will support the touring of the 2026 iteration of the exhibition to three venues in and South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales.
Touring funding: $100,685.00
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2025
This annual exhibition promotes the best contemporary photographic portraiture by professional and aspiring Australian photographers.
Funding will support the touring of the 2025 iteration of the exhibition to two venues in Western Australia and Victoria.
Touring funding: $60,760.00
Mīal by Archie Moore
This exhibition is a conceptual self-portrait containing 34 panels of various sizes that can be exhibited at a variety of scales with some or all panels on display. Each panel relates to a part of the artist's body and is named in his Ancestral languages. The exhibition counters expectations of what a self-portrait should be and probes the politics and codification of skin colour, and the racist historical practice of classifying skin tone.
Funding will support the touring of the exhibition to three venues in Queensland.
Touring funding: $35,170.00
