Australia’s newest art museum, Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) officially opens its doors to the public on Saturday 20 November 2021 with nine free exhibitions, four new artwork commissions, and presenting more than 200 artists in a celebration of the area’s rich and diverse culture, people and landscape. Designed by acclaimed Australian architecture firm Denton Corker Marshall and spanning five floors, the new $50 million art museum houses over 4,000 artworks, with over 200 artists represented and 160 Indigenous and First Nations artworks on display, including its nationally recognised ceramics collection and the nation’s most significant collection of South-East Australian Aboriginal art.

Acting as a community and arts and cultural hub for the Greater Shepparton region, the new SAM building houses the Shepparton Art Museum; Shepparton Visitors’ Information Centre; Kaiela Arts, Shepparton’s Aboriginal community arts centre; an outdoor amphitheatre and Art Hill; and cafe and 150-person event space and terrace, all within a 5,300m2 cubic building. Situated in regional Victoria around two hours’ drive north from Melbourne, SAM is located on the lands of the Yorta Yorta peoples, on the shore of Victoria Park Lake, Shepparton.