The $1.4 billion Powerhouse Parramatta has officially reached its final major construction milestone, with 100% completion of main building works. Now, work begins on the installation of their first five major international exhibitions, alongside the development of learning, industry and community programs.
Task Eternal, a space-themed exhibition, will be one of five exhibitions opening at Powerhouse Parramatta later this year. The museum has so far kept details of the remaining exhibitions under wraps, while the official opening date is yet to be announced. A Powerhouse Parramatta spokesperson has said only that the institution will be “announcing further information later this year”.
One detail that has been revealed is a 100-year time capsule designed by Australian designer David Caon, which will be launched as part of the museum’s opening celebrations. Intended to preserve a snapshot of contemporary scientific innovation for future generations, the capsule’s contents remain a closely guarded secret.
There will also be a ground-breaking food project, harnessing Western Sydney’s cultural cuisine with the science of food production.
CEO Lisa Havilah told 702 ABC Radio Sydney in 2025 that all the exhibitions at Powerhouse Parramatta will be temporary. “Some will go for a year, some will go for two years, but there’ll always be new exhibitions and new stories,” Havilah said.
“We’ll open with five major exhibitions, and so we’re just announcing the first one today, which is really exciting, and so over the next year we’ll share the other projects and exhibitions that are coming up.”
Again, the answer is vague, but this likely means that the museum will continue to unveil more and more about the exhibition program as we approach the end of 2026.
The landmark opening exhibition: Task Eternal
Task Eternal will headline the opening of Powerhouse Parramatta. An ambitious aerospace exhibition might not be the obvious choice to launch one of the world’s most anticipated new museums, but it tracks with NSW’s big push into science, innovation and culture.
Billed as one of the most ambitious exhibitions of its kind, Task Eternal (which was four years in the making) sets out to place Western Sydney firmly in the global conversation. It takes over the museum’s showpiece gallery, an enormous, 18-metre-high, column-free space spanning more than 2,000 square metres, and fills it with scale to match.
Inside, you’ll find more than 600 objects, including major international loans from institutions like the British Museum and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, alongside contributions from space agencies and emerging tech players.
Some of the objects you can expect to see include Australian astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg’s spacesuit (on public display for the very first time), a prototype of Roo-ver, a 1914 Bleriot XI monoplane (one of the world’s earliest aircraft) and an F1 rocket engine.
And in terms of commissioned works, expect them to be large, immersive (and yes, infinitely Instagrammable). Pictured above is Vehasayan by Torlap Larpjaroensook: a large kinetic sculpture inspired by Voyager 1 and the Thai greeting that was sent on its Golden Record to space in 1977.
A major part of Task Eternal is the commission Shangri La (Over the Hump) by James Turrell. Turrell brings viewers into shifting fields of light and colour to distort depth perception. This has been described as “flying through dense fog” to connect audiences to Turrell’s background as a pilot.
What else do we know about Powerhouse Parramatta?
One thing to note about Powerhouse Parramatta is that it’s not just a museum; it’s a full-blown cultural precinct.
More than 50 Australian designers have been commissioned to create everything from furniture and retail spaces to exhibition displays, making the building itself one of the country’s largest showcases of contemporary Australian design.
There’ll be overnight learning residencies, meaning that 10,000 secondary students from across regional New South Wales and Western Sydney will be able to stay at the museum each year.
Alongside accommodation for students, there will also be 30 residential studios, allowing artists, researchers and scientists to collaborate with Powerhouse on research and programs.
For budding chefs and foodies alike, a visit to the 200-seat, large-scale demonstration kitchen will spotlight the science (and culture) of food.
Overlooking the Parramatta River, the Powerhouse restaurant has been designed by acclaimed architect and designer George Livissianis, the creative force behind Redfern’s iconic Greek taverna, Olympus.
Renowned for its breathtaking courtyard centred around a magnificent 50-year-old bougainvillea tree, Olympus has set a high benchmark, raising expectations for what’s to come at Powerhouse Parramatta’s new dining destination.
Powerhouse Parramatta will showcase histories and cutting-edge thinking about the culture and production of food through two foundational programs: the Vitocco Family Kitchen and the Vitocco Legacy Project.
The Vitocco Family Kitchen will bring together leading chefs and food producers from across Australia and around the world to educate and inspire communities and audiences. It will feature a large-scale demonstration kitchen, seating for audiences of up to 200 people and high-end technology to support digital content creation.
It will involve communities across agriculture, manufacturing, changing land use, cultural diversity and food production.
It has established a full-time curator at Powerhouse Parramatta devoted to researching, collecting and sharing the histories, innovations and entrepreneurial spirit of Western Sydney.
The Vitocco Legacy Project is integrating with and expanding the Powerhouse Australian Culinary Archive, which is working closely with industry to collect the histories of the great chefs and producers of Australia.
Up top, a rooftop terrace delivers skyline views back to the Sydney CBD, alongside a productive garden with Indigenous plant species, an observatory, greenhouse and public event spaces. Master blacksmith and founder of Eveleigh Works, Matt Mewburn, will create a custom-built, multipurpose fire cooking area for the terrace.
Powerhouse Chief Executive Lisa Havilah said, “Powerhouse Parramatta is a new generation museum… It will be a museum embedded with innate flexibility, with the ability to continuously evolve, changing with the world to ensure that it remains relevant and impactful for generations to come.”
You can learn more about the new museum here.
