PERTH.- Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) will open its Season 1 program during Bunuru on Thursday 5 February with three major exhibitions curated to connect local stories with global conversations while tracing histories of water and cultural exchange.

Running until 29 March 2026, Season 1 welcomes the WA premiere of Awakening Histories, a powerful exhibition illuminating the long-standing connections between northern Australia’s First Nations peoples and Makassan seafarers. Informed by Monash University’s ARC Laureate project Global Encounters & First Nations Peoples: 1000 Years of Australian History, the exhibition foregrounds the storytelling of artists and artworks, tracing trade routes and cultural exchange through oceans and Country.

Presented in collaboration with Perth Festival and curated by an Australian–Indonesian curatorium, Awakening Histories spans new commissions, UNESCO-listed artworks and an expanded film program. The exhibition features works from more than 20 artists including Abdul-Rahman Abdullah (WA), Aziziah Diah Aprilya (Indonesia), Cian Dayrit (Philippines), Guan Wei (China), Jenna Lee (Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri) and Darrell Sibosado (WA, Bard).

The world-premiere of Painting Itself / 绘画本身 forms PICA’s second major presentation supported by Perth Festival, with an exhibition that brings together five leading artists from across Asia — Jon Chan (Singapore), Un Cheng and Chris Huen Sin-Kan (Hong Kong), Noor Mahnun (Malaysia) and Tang Dixin (China) — to rethink contemporary painting through a regional lens. Guest curated by Jonathan Nichols, the exhibition features 13 works and explores a new horizontal culture in painting, where fundamental ideas about its history and vitality are being reshaped in East and Southeast Asia.

Rounding out the season’s opening presentations is Soft Grates, a three-part installation by Jen Berean and James Carey (Melbourne/Naarm) that reveals the hidden water networks in and around the PICA building.

The fourth Judy Wheeler Commission at PICA, Soft Grates invites audiences to consider how institutions mark time and hold memory through water, uncovering the unseen systems that flow through PICA’s building in Boorloo (Perth). This site-responsive installation comprises a year-long sculptural intervention, a sound work composed from recordings of local water sources and a copper sculpture indexing the building’s annual water consumption. Together, the works prompt reflection on the slow, temporal and fragile nature of water systems and our relationship to them.

The season program officially launches at 6pm on Thursday 5 February with PICA After Hours, a re-imagined opening night transforming the gallery into a vibrant playground of art and music. This free event is open to the public and will feature jade//vision, a live local line-up of alt-jazz improv musicians.

Weekends at PICA, supported by City of Perth, will see FREE exhibition tours, storytelling sessions and artist talks taking place on the afternoon of Saturday 7 February from 1-5pm, giving fresh perspectives and insights into PICA’s exhibitions during Bunuru:

• Painting Itself 绘画本身 Exhibition Tour led by Guest Curator Jonathan Nichols (1-2pm)

• Sea Stories and Saltwater Legends: Storytelling with Ron Bradfield Jnr (2-2.30pm)

• Awakening Histories artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah in conversation with Ron Bradfield Jnr (2.30-3.00pm)

• Flow States: Conversations on Water with James Carey, Jenna Lee and Darrell Sibosado, facilitated by writer and environmental researcher Prema Arasu (3.30-5.00pm)

The family-friendly PICA Hub will also feature a bespoke artist-designed activity for visitors to explore how trade is more than the swapping of goods. Artist and storyteller Ron Bradfield Jr., a Bardi and Jawi saltwater man from north of Broome, has created activities and games around the exhibitions that focus on relationships, culture and Country.

Further into the Bunuru season, PICA will reveal its highly-anticipated inaugural boorda yeyi Immersive Arts Commission on Friday 20 February with April Phillips’ + Friends with Computers Under Waters, a multi-sensory dive into oceans, stars and unseen worlds.

PICA will also present the world premiere of Zoology by Too Close To The Sun at WA Museum Boola Bardip, taking place from 25–27 February 2026. Created by artist Talya Rubin, Zoology is a subverted performance lecture and dance work exploring wildness and extinction, weaving childhood imagination, history and absurdist storytelling into a poetic and unsettling reflection on our relationship with the natural world. General Admission tickets are $35.