The 2026 South Side Festival exhibition program has landed, and it is as diverse as it is exciting.
Visit the Frankston Arts Centre galleries:
Australian Wearable Arts Festival A Wearable Canvas: a rare opportunity to experience these remarkable fashion works up close. Spanning categories including Trashion, Sustainable Nature, Avant Garde and Abstract Form, A Wearable Canvas highlights the diversity and creative ambition of contemporary wearable art practice. This exhibition celebrates artists who push boundaries, transform unexpected materials and tell powerful stories through form, texture and design.
Rennie Ellis Good Times: A selection of iconic imagery and celebratory photographs of everyday people enjoying life from one of Australia’s greatest storytellers. Rennie Ellis was a photographer known for his candid, documentary-style images capturing the essence of contemporary Australia, the good times of social events like music festivals, fashion and nightclubs, as well as the gritty side of the urban world.
Natalie Finney Second Nature: Step into a dreamlike realm of photographic gardens and curious specimens, where illusion feels natural and the line between truth and imitation becomes delightfully uncertain. Also featuring sculptural elements and video projection, this exhibition invites viewers to look closely and consider how beauty, perception and, imitation merge within both nature and its manufactured reflections.
Here& Now Fragments: What remains after a film that can only be seen once? Fragments is a visual exploration of memory, technology, and the fleeting nature of live performance. This exhibition showcases a series of generative artworks born from HERE & NOW’s high-stakes “Live Cinema” events by Andreas Rau. Using a custom algorithm to “witness” the performance, these pieces capture moments from a film shot, edited, and screened in real-time. Each artwork serves as a unique digital artifact—a permanent echo of a cinematic experience that has otherwise vanished.
Exhibitions outside of the Frankston Arts Centre:
Mick Russell and Manda Lane Between: The Wells St. Windows will come alive again in storytelling splendour, as Mick Russell infuses new connections between Frankston’s Street Art & South Side Festival program with a sculptural Manda Lane collab by day, and interactive projections featuring festival artists by night.
Street Art Studio: 10 talented street artists have transformed the old Toys R Us shop at Bayside Shopping Centre Frankston into a vibrant indoor laneway. Each mural features pull-away panels, giving you the chance to bid on and take home your very own piece of the artwork—before, in true street art style, it’s taken down.
Studio Gallery open Saturdays between 21 March – 16 May, 10:00am – 4:00pm. And come join us at the closing party after hours on Saturday 16 May, 6pm – 10pm.
For all the details and full South Side Festival program including theatre performance, dance, film screenings, workshops and so much more head to https://southsidefestival.com.au/ and follow us on socials @southsidefestivalfrankston
Images:
Good Times: Image (detail) Yobbos, Sunbury Pop Festivla 1974 c Rennie Ellis
Second Nature: Image credit Natalie Finney
Fragments: Image credit Andreas Rau, No Echo No Response
A Wearable Canvas: Image credit Sprinkle by Antoaneta Tica Photo Barry Alsop
A Wearable Canvas: Sunflare Sentinel by Oana Rosca Photo Barry Alsop, Eyes Wide Open Images
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