The Albanese Labor Government is piloting an initiative to link works from the National Portrait Gallery collection with locally significant stories to increase engagement with a broader range of Australian communities.
The Government provided $500,000 to the National Portrait Gallery to collaborate with a local gallery and their community to create an exhibition with local perspectives.
The Gallery has worked with the Logan Art Gallery and community members in Queensland to co-design the exhibition Thread: Connecting stories and community, which traces the relationships between garments and the histories, labour and knowledge systems of First Nations people.
The exhibition will be on display at Logan from 18 April to 13 June then will travel to the Portrait Gallery from 4 July 2026.
The pilot project invited local artists, creatives and community members to participate in, and steer, a series of consultative workshops throughout 2025.
Selected portraits from the National Collection will be presented alongside existing and newly commissioned works by four Logan artists, creating a dynamic conversation between national and regional voices, facilitating community-led interpretation and intercultural collaboration.
The innovative lessons learnt will be further developed into an adaptive toolkit to encourage new approaches and reciprocity between national, regional and suburban institutions.
