Task Eternal

Developed over four years, Task Eternal is an expansive and immersive exhibition tracing humanity’s enduring quest to defy gravity, take flight and journey into space.

From First Nations sky knowledges and early aviation to cutting-edge aerospace innovation, ethics and speculative futures, Task Eternal brings together over 600 objects, including items from the Powerhouse Collection and loans from leading local and international science and cultural institutions.

Partnered institutions include the British Museum, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, space agencies and start-ups across 12 countries, including the USA, UK, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Korea and India.

Also included are 16 major new artist commissions by Australian and international artists.

Task Eternal is set to occupy Powerhouse Parramatta’s largest gallery space, Presentation Space 1 (PS 1.) PS1 rises to 18 metres high and spans a 2,200 sqm footprint: a space that will be totally transformed through a partnership with acclaimed Beijing-Based OPEN Architecture, led by Li Hu and Huang Wenjing.

Drawing inspiration from Ted Chiang’s science fiction short story The Tower of Babylon, OPEN Architecture have developed the exhibition’s design to invite visitors on an ascending journey through four acts — Skyward, Power, Off-Earth and The Return — before returning them to Earth.

An original essay, commissioned from Chiang by Powerhouse, will be featured throughout the exhibition, an approach set to blend the worlds of speculative fiction and the sciences.

Australian contributions are key to Task Eternal. From Katherine Bennell-Pegg’s next-generation spacesuit, to the protoype Roo-ver surface rover, the Kosmosuit and launch systems developed by Gilmour Space, Task Eternal demonstrates Australia’s growing presence in the global aerospace ecosystem.

An iconic work by highly awarded artist James Turrell, Shangri La (Over The Hump) will be presented alongside immersive installations by Torlarp Larpjaroensook and the Yolnu artist Naminapu Maymuru-White.

Task Eternal interweaves First Nations sky knowledges such as Yolnu cosmologies, celestial navigation and boomerang flight as ancestral flight technology throughout — not treating them as supplements, but instead as foundational frameworks of the exhibit.

In these ways, Task Eternal is guided by — and is itself a reflection of — the deeply communal nature of aeronautical travel. Exploring the skies is not just a nation-by-nation project: it is something that humanity now does together, in a shared goal driven by mutual curiosity.

With Task Eternal, Powerhouse invites audiences to join that curiosity in this uniquely global movement. Containing work from artists, creatives and scientists from across the planet, it is a global conversation that asks: how do we navigate our future in space, ethically and inclusively?

As they travel through the exhibit, audiences will be invited to reflect on our global ambitions — on the very nature of human curiosity — and will return back to Earth, as so many astronauts have done before them, with brand new perspectives.