The latest round of the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach (NCITO) program is providing $1 million to bring exhibitions of cultural material to Australian communities.

Australian singer Thelma Plum dressed in a vibrant orange dress and red boots crouched in front of a small homestead building next to a Hills Hoist clothesline surrounded by red dirt.
Image credit: Em Jensen, Thelma Plum 2024, National Photographic Portrait Prize 2025 Finalist © Em Jensen

The National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach program seeks to bring Australian and overseas cultural material to all Australians through national tours and to help tour Australian exhibitions overseas.

Each year, the program supports our National Collecting Institutions to develop and stage touring exhibitions, with a particular emphasis on reaching regional communities. These exhibitions allow audiences across the country to experience a wide range of arts and cultural material.

The 2026-27 round will enable 8 institutions to tour a total of 14 exhibitions, which explore diverse themes and stories.

The successful recipients include:

  • Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House – to tour its Behind the Lines 2026 exhibition to two venues in NSW and Qld. Behind the Lines is an annual exhibition that showcases the best Australian political cartoons from the year, including historical political cartoons from the museum’s collection.
  • National Film and Sound Archive – to tour its Dreaming Black Screen exhibition to two venues in WA and Qld.The exhibition will explore the compelling arc of First Nations storytelling on screen, from early representations by non-Indigenous filmmakers to a breakthrough generation of First Nations filmmakers telling their own stories.
  • National Portrait Gallery to tour its National Photographic Portrait Prize 2026 exhibition to three venues in SA, Qld and NSW. The National Photographic Portrait Prize is an annual photography prize and exhibition that promotes the best contemporary photographic portraiture by professional and aspiring Australian photographers.
  • National Gallery of Australia to tour its Grace Cossington Smith exhibition to two venues in SA and Qld. This exhibition brings new insights into the art of one of Australia’s most significant female modernists through a selection of rarely seen sketchbooks and key paintings from the national collection to provide a deeper insight into her artistic practice, life and character.

Find out more