The season kicks off on February 24 with an archival exhibition, Bill Lucas: Utopian Architect. This exhibition, which includes unpublished archival drawings, photographs, artwork, private writings and public documents, explores the extensive archive of Bill Lucas (1924-2001), one of Sydney’s most important at the end of the 20^and architects of the century which was invariably ahead of its time. Joern Utzon during a 1973 BBC television interview said: “That all work has a purpose and is done “to the limit of the possible” is a concept we most readily associate with painters and sculptors, except in the rare case of an architect of vision and the ability to Bill Lucas.

This year’s exhibits and program are the result of a highly competitive open call to support a range of voices and experimentation.

Highlights include:

Art & Activism in the Nuclear Age, and a public symposium that showcases rarely shown artwork on Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Bikini Atoll, Maralinga, Chernobyl and Fukushima, showcasing a wide range of artistic and activist responses to the nuclear age;

2015 photographic series of Miriam Charlie, eldest of Yanyuwa Garrwa, The Housing Promisea collection of portraits of Indigenous residents and their homes in the Northern Territory which will be accompanied by public lectures aimed at exploring infrastructural inequalities in Australia’s regional and remote communities;

SHE robots: tool, toy and companion which explores the rise of female leadership in robotics. Over the past century, research in industrial robotics has mostly taken place in academic and military laboratories, led by male-dominated hierarchies, but now we are seeing the rise of female leadership in robotics. This exhibition looks at traditional practice, but takes a collaborative multi-voice approach.

With a 50-year history as a site of radical activism in art, design and architecture, the Tin Sheds Gallery is one of a handful of select galleries around the world, such as the Canadian Center for Architecture and the StoreFront for Art and Architecture in New York, which explore current and important issues around design and the built environment.

The Tin Sheds Gallery provides a distinctive voice and plays a vital role in the University of Sydney’s ‘cultural quarter’, which includes the Chau Chak Museum, the Seymour Centre, the Power Institute and the SCA and Verge Galleries.