Current & Upcoming Exhibitions
AWESOME 80'S
8 August 2026 - 14 February 2027
Do you remember when Macquarie Street was wide and busy enough to need traffic lights? Eating at Ollies Restaurant or riding paddleboats on the Macquarie River?
The Awesome 80s exhibition highlights a collection of photographs from our collections have never before been publicly displayed.
Focusing on the 1980s these images present an intimate snapshot of places, faces and events that shaped life in Dubbo in a decade that transformed both the city and our nation
Image: Photographer Unknown, Pedal Boats in Macquarie River, Dubbo, c.1987, Donation from Marion Dormer Estate, Local Studies Collection, Dubbo Regional Council.
Reserved
A bite sized look at Dubbo's food culture
28 March 2026 - 7 March 2027
Do you know how much a T-bone steak cost at the Westside in the 1960s? Or what a Fürst Pückler is? The history of food is a fascinating one, and our exhibition ‘Reserved’ is a bite sized exploration of the food we eat told through some of the fascinating local menus held in the collections here at the Western Plains Cultural Centre.
Image Credit: Menu: Welcome to the Savannah Room, Taronga Western Plains Zoo, Dubbo, 1986, Local Studies Collection, Dubbo Regional Council
PEOPLE PLACES POSSESSIONS
DUBBO STORIES
Permanent Exhibition
The history of Dubbo told through the people who lived here. Stories of hardship, perseverance, ingenuity, tragedy and joy – Dubbo’s past is at once surprising and enlightening.
Telling the story of a place and its people is made easier by examining the myriad of ways we document, express and articulate our experiences. For a museum, the photographs, books, objects and official records help us to record history. The archives held by the WPCC allow community members to access this material for research or general interest. From diaries and ledgers to photographs that transport us back in time, the WPCC Collection provides a unique portal to our past.
Image Credit: Maker unknown, Shoe – Female – Chinese, date unknown. Red satin. Braid edging continues down to the toe. Calico sole with embroidery under the heel. Bird and flower embroidery. Orange tie embroidered in shades of blue. Designed for the custom of bound feet. Collection WPCC.
SENSORIAL
17 October 2026 - 31 January 2027
In response to the experiences of those in the neurodivergent and disabled communities who find gallery visits frustrating, noisy and ultimately unsatisfying, sensorial provides a sensory reprieve. The premise of this exhibition is to touch, listen and be immersed in the artworks, rather than simply observe them.
The exhibition includes new and existing work made by neurodivergent and disabled people, and those who work with them. The artists and collectives have wholeheartedly embraced the idea of presenting works that captivate our full range of sense and, most importantly, can be touched. The works are invitations to enter each artist’s world and consider their perspective.
A Blue Mountains Cultural Centre touring exhibition, curated by Rilka Oakley and proudly funded by NSW Government. The development of sensorial was supported by the Dobell Exhibition Grant, funded by the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, and managed by Museums & Galleries of NSW. Supported by Create NSW.
Image: Liam Benson, Hello, good to meet you, (installation view) 2022, fabric, netting, felt, cotton, dance fringe, single-channel video, sound, saddle racks, 300 x 900 x 200cm. Photo: Silversalt
SUSAN YAGHJIAN
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE RIVER
17 October 2026 - 31 January 2027
In It's All About the River Dubbo-based artist Susan Yaghjian presents a series of views of the Macquarie Wambuul river. Working across acrylic and watercolour, these landscapes resist taking a clear environmental stance, avoiding both sentimentality and critique in their portrayal of the human-river relationship. Instead, the exhibition observes the river as its stretches across regional landscapes, revealing both its beauty and its harsher realities.
This is a HomeGround exhibition, produced by the WPCC and supported by Orana Arts. HomeGround is sponsored by Bruce and Wendy Gray.
IN CONVERSATION EVENT: Saturday 17 October, 2pm. Register HERE
Bruce and Wendy Gray
Image: Susan Yaghjian, Carp, 2025, 30cm x 25cm, watercolour on paper. ©Susan Yaghjian
KIM V. GOLDSMITH
SONGS OF SOWING & REAPING
17 October 2026 - 14 February 2027
Within Songs of Sowing & Reaping, Dubbo-based, multi-disciplinary artist, Kim V. Goldsmith has developed works that hold the movement and sonic memories of the day they were captured, along with the ecological echo of the Western Plains. In slipping beneath the vibrating surfaces of the region’s familiar landscapes, Goldsmith investigates ways to better understand the land and the life it supports. This exhibition is the culmination of two years of on-site, creative acoustic-ecological fieldwork on the Maynard family farm in the Narromine Shire, and with those who keep and nurture traditional culture in the Trangie community, on Wongaibon Country.
This exhibition is part of the SOIL + AiR Creative Future Landscapes Project funded by Create NSW and the Country Arts Support Program.
OPENING EVENT: Saturday 24 October, 2pm. Register HERE
Image: Kim V. Goldsmith, A Song of Sowing & Reaping, 2026, video still from a LiDAR video and audio waveform animation, duration 16 minutes. Supplied by the artist.
VICKI ALAND
IN A WORD
20 February - 20 June 2027
A collection of sculptural paper-based artworks, In a Word challenges the nature of communication by inviting you to reconsider the relationship between text, image, and meaning. Through processes of writing, folding, cutting, and layering, Dubbo-based artist Vicki Aland shows how language can be both physical and fragile, holding multiple interpretations to be de-coded by the reader.
Image: Vicki Aland, The Spoken Web (detail), 2026, watercolour paper, 77 x 56cm. ©the artist.