Welcome to our feature – Arts Scene Around Freo – compiled by our Arts Editor, Gayle O’Leary. Here we will bring to your attention community Arts events happening around Freo – visual arts, live performances, music gigs of various sorts, you name it. Each week we will post Arts Scene on our homepage as well as in The Weekly Edition. If you’d like to have your event included, let Gayle know!
So, what’s happening this week?
Between Suns
Friday 7 August – 20 September
Open: Wed 1pm-7pm Thu-Sun: 11am – 5pm
Vessel Contemporary is proud to announce ‘Between Suns’, a major survey exhibition of work by Khaled Sabsabi, opening 7 August 2026 at the Naval Store in Fremantle.
Curated by Mikala Tai, the exhibition brings together works spanning 1998 to 2026, including new and previously unexhibited works, transforming Vessel into an immersive, multi-sensory experience.
Working across painting, video, sound, installation and performance, Khaled approaches art as a communicative and ethical space: a shared language through which complex ideas of belonging, faith, power and collectively can be encountered. His work frequently draws on mysticism, ritual and everyday gestures, unfolding across cycles rather than fixed narratives, and inviting audiences into moments of reflection, resonance and exchange.
Sabsabi describes the exhibition as ‘an opportunity to further personal artistic and creative expressions of the undefined routines and the ability to distill space, time and symbolism into the narrative of life.’
‘Between Suns’ runs concurrently with Sabsabi’s representation of Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale, offering Western Australian audiences a rare opportunity to engage deeply with an internationally acclaimed artist’s practice on a local scale.
📍Naval Store, 141 Queen Victoria Street, Fremantle
https://vesselcontemporary.org/
Make/Shift Festival
4 – 18 September 2026
Make/shift is a festival of future-making in and around Walyalup Fremantle.
At its heart is the idea that the future is something we make, and that if we want just, sustainable, and joyful futures, we need to challenge the ones we’re being offered and roll up our sleeves to make better ones.
Make/shift takes place on the lands of the Whadjuk people of the Nyoongar nation. We acknowledge their elders who have cared for this Country throughout time, and who know more about resistance and adaptation in the face of crisis than we ever will.
📍Walyalup Fremantle
Something in the Sky
Friday 4 – 20 September 6pm ~
Internationally acclaimed WA artist Jon Tarry looks to the sky in a major exhibition of sculpture, and performance in the iconic PS Art Space.
Walyalup/Fremantle, WA — Jon Tarry is one of Australia’s most prolific and internationally recognised artists. Working across the spheres of socially engaged art that combines traditional modes of making with complex new forms. His work is an examination of mobility in the modern world and he’s bringing it home to Fremantle before touring internationally.
Tarry is renowned for major exhibitions, commissioned art and architectural innovations across Australia, the USA, the Middle East and Europe with more than 60 works in the public realm to date. He recently completed major land artwork in the Yarra Ranges Victoria, he is known for his signature works in WA; Convergence at Perth Stadium, Waterlines wrapping around Yagan Square; and internationally for his commissions in the Chrysler building NY, and as a Venice Biennale exhibitor.
Now with this showing he is pushing his practice into new uncertain terrain: where sculpture is at the intersection of immersive live performance. This major new solo exhibition of 35 new works, Something in the Sky, opens at PS Art Space on 4 September, bringing sculptural installation, light works and sonic artworks together into a single, participatory experience and setting the direction for a new body of experimental and performative work that follows through to his international tour in 2027, in Amsterdam, Paris and Japan.
The show brings together diverse expressions around one theme of the uncanny, something in the sky, is it a cloud, a bird a drone or something still to be discovered? Poetry and pragmatics merge and shapeshift in forms that integrate traditional mediums and experimental installation.
Across the 35 new works, Tarry moves between scale and medium. Bronze sculpture ranges from large and small scale abstractions of airport runways to planar works that carry a fragment of sky from two dimensions into three. A bronze wing curled like a quill mid-scribe, a lunar module beneath a full-size parachute, and figures walking through cloud. These sit alongside photographic and digital media works, oil paintings, a ten-metre drawing accompanied by sound, and optical works including a telescope and distorting lenses to unsettle the viewers perspective. Graphite wall drawings, film and sound works shot at an aircraft boneyard in Arizona, lightning over Broome, and a park in Copenhagen, plus text-based works, complete this expansive exhibition experience.
Jon Tarry | Sculpture, Light, Sound
📍PS Art Space, Walyalup Fremantle
https://events.humanitix.com/something-in-the-sky-bu-baggagehandler-jon-tarry-dom-mariani
Cloud Forest, Unfolding
Friday 18 September- 20 October 2026
Japingka Gallery is proud to present Cloud Forest, Unfolding: Ömie Barkcloth Art of Papua New Guinea, an extraordinary exhibition of contemporary barkcloth designs created by women artists from the remote mountain forests of Oro Province.
The Ömie homeland is a place of extraordinary natural beauty. Deep valleys are surrounded by mountains that stretch towards the horizon, often disappearing beneath drifting cloud and mist. Dense rainforest pathways lead through a world alive with flowers, fruits, birds, butterflies and other creatures, while the sacred volcano Huvaimo stands at the heart of Ömie Country.
This remarkable environment is reflected throughout Ömie barkcloth painting. Through intricate mark-making, pattern and colour, artists draw on their intimate knowledge of the natural world, transforming observations of forest, mountain, sky and living things into highly sophisticated abstract designs.
📍Japingka Art Gallery 47 High Street, Fremantle
https://japingkaaboriginalart.com/collections/cloud-forest-unfolding/#content
La Fonda del Federal 🇨🇱
Sunday 20 September 4pm – midnight
🎟️ FREE ENTRY
🎶 Chilean bands + DJs
💃 Traditional dancers + Cueca
🎯 Games throughout the night
🌶️ Chilean food specials
🍹 Piscolas, Terremotos, Pisco Sours + Micheladas
One massive celebration of Chilean culture, right in the heart of Freo.
We’ll see you Sunday, September 20th at The Fed.
#LaFondaDelFederal #ChileanIndependenceDay #FiestasPatrias #TheFederalHotel #Fremantle
📍Federal Hotel, Fremantle
https://events.humanitix.com/la-fonda-del-federal
The Night Parrot Choir
Tuesday 22 September 6pm – 9pm
The Night Parrot Choir, led by Anna Wallwork, brings a luscious set of soulful and hearty songs to Spring 2026 in the divine setting of Hybrid Warehouse Fremantle. With support from the incredible solo guitarist Prijam Bacich, the evening will bring a moment to sit back and inhale beauty. Not to be missed!
📍Hybrid Warehouse, Fremantle
https://events.humanitix.com/the-night-parrot-choir
St Ali Italian Film Festival 2026
Thursday 24 September – 18 October
View the daily festival schedule here.
Returning to cinema screens this September is the largest celebration of Italian culture and film outside Italy, the 2026 ST. ALi Italian Film Festival presented by Palace. Featuring unmissable gems from some of Italy’s finest filmic talents, the festival screens at Luna Palace Cinemas from September 24 til October 18.
Among this year’s highlights is the bittersweet romantic drama THREE GOODBYES (Tre ciotole), based on the bestselling novel by Michela Murgia. When a couple (played by acclaimed actors Alba Rohrwacher and Elio Germano) split up after what seems like a trivial argument, their lives dramatically change in this emotional, ultimately life-affirming tale from director Isabel Coixet.
Directed by and starring Rocco Papaleo, THE GREATER GOOD (Il bene comune) is both a story of resilience and a heartfelt love letter to the southern Italian region of Basilicata. The story follows a hiking group whose search for an ancient pine tree in Pollino National Park becomes a transformative journey for each of them.
THE EYES OF OTHERS (Gli occhi degli altri) starring Jasmine Trinca and Filippo Timi, takes its inspiration from sensational real events amongst the elite in 1960s Italy. Set on the scenic Pontine Islands archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea, this provocative thriller is an intense tale of passion and crime amidst the wild beauty of an island owned by an immensely wealthy marquis.
The comedy TWIN STARS (Stella gemella) portrays a couple facing a relationship crisis who suddenly learn they are expecting twins. But not a regular set of twins, an extremely rare case in which each twin has a different father! Featuring stellar supporting performances from Margherita Buy and Laura Morante, this delightful new comedy from Luca Lucini is a story of family, modern love and self-discovery.
Intergenerational dramatic comedy CLASSMATES (Domani interrogo), based on Gaja Cenciarelli’s novel, stars Anna Ferzetti as a devoted English teacher assigned to the toughest class in a Rome high school. The film highlights the power of education, and the essential nature of respect and community in today’s classrooms.
📍Luna SX Fremantle
https://lunapalace.com.au/festivals/italian-ff
A Musical Evening with Emily Barker (supported by Tim Darby)
Friday 25 September 6pm – 9pm
Emily Barker is an award-winning Australian singer-songwriter. She found early success as the writer and performer of the theme to the hugely successful BBC crime drama Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh and has since gone on to forge an acclaimed catalogue of releases, leading The Guardian to say “Emily Barker has a gift for great melodies”.
After 20 years and a raft of releases and collaborations, Barker recently relocated home to WA and is now based in Fremantle.
Barker’s latest album, Fragile as Humans, was produced at storied English studio The Wool Hall by Luke Potashnick (Gabrielle Aplin, Jack Savoretti). It followed 2020’s A Dark Murmuration of Words, which Uncut called “…a kind of Australian equivalent of PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake” and which NPR’s Ann Powers acclaimed as “One of the most literate and probing folk albums of the year.”
Barker has released music and toured as a solo artist as well as with various bands and collaborations – most notably her long associations with Mary Chapin Carpenter and Frank Turner – and has written for TV and film, including composing the soundtrack for Jake Gavin’s lauded debut feature Hector starring Peter Mullan and Keith Allen.
📍Ecoburbia, Beaconsfield
https://events.humanitix.com/a-musical-evening-with-tim-darby-and-emily-barker
Totally Lit
Friday 2 – 16 October 2026
Totally Lit is back to take over Fremantle / Walyalup with two amazing weeks of live literature events. From the Port to the Prison, from the beach to the bars, in the streets and in the sky, Totally Lit is here to prove that stories belong everywhere.
With nearly 60 unique events to choose from, we have something to offer all ages. With many events available free-of-charge we also have something to offer all budgets.
📍 Walyalup Fremantle
Consort
Saturday 10 October 7pm – 8:15pm
Join HIP Company in Consort: an intimate musical vignette of 16th and 17th century England, celebrating works for viol ensemble and voice.
This concert brings together four of Western Australia’s leading viol proponents: Krista Low, Hannah Herriman, Tadhg Sudlow and Andrew Tait; playing replicas of historical treble, tenor and bass viols. Joining them in song are David Valsamidis (UK bass-baritone) and Bonnie de la Hunty (soprano and Artistic Director).
📍Old Customs House, Fremantle
https://events.humanitix.com/consort
Fremantle Design Week 2026
16 – 25 October 2026
Fashion parade, sustainable circular furniture and clothing, short film screenings at Luna SX, studio showcases, architectural panel talks, and more, there is something for every Design buff.
The Fremantle Design Week 2026 program is live!
Immerse yourself in 11 days packed full of design and design ideas, with over 60 events in and around the port city.
Local architects, designers, makers, artists and creatives will be joined by some of Australia’s leading design voices, connecting you to the people, projects and movements shaping design in the West and globally.
Preview some highlights below, then jump onto the website for the full program. Pull up the diary, plan your design week, and book now!
📍Walyalup Fremantle
https://fremantledesignweek.com/?mc_cid=19e5102a97&mc_eid=588d2ccdcc
F.RE.0 Fashion Festival
Saturday 17 October 10am – 4pm
The inaugural FREO Fashion Festival is a celebration of Western Australian sustainable fashion, taking place on Saturday, October 17. Transforming Walyalup Koort and the Fremantle Town Hall, this one-day city takeover brings together local independent designers, makers, upcyclers, and pre-loved fashion curators.
Visitors can experience three distinct runway showcases, explore a large outdoor sustainable fashion market, participate in hands-on upcycling workshops, attend insightful industry panel talks, and join in a community clothes swap as we celebrate World Op Shop Day.
This event features both free and ticketed activations, offering inspiration for a vibrant, inclusive, and collaborative local fashion industry.
Runway Program
11:00 AM – Re:Imagine Runway (Walyalup Koort)
Located on the paved area in front of the Fremantle Town Hall, this runway showcases unique wearable art, upcycled designs, and curated pre-loved and vintage fashion.
12:30 PM – The Pre-Loved Parade (Henderson Street Mall)
Located in front of the Fremantle Markets, this surprise flash mob runway features 10 professional dancers and 24 models bringing the street to life.
2:00 PM – Re:Volutionise Runway (Walyalup Koort)
Highlighting the future of ethical design in Western Australia, this runway features independent designers, current fashion students, and recent graduates who design and produce ethically.
Other Festival Activations
Sustainable Fashion Market
Explore a curated selection of local independent designers, makers, and quality pre-loved and vintage vendors.
Upcycling Workshops & Clothes Swap
Participate in hands-on workshops focused on mending and textile upcycling, or bring quality garments to exchange at the community clothes swap.
Industry Panel Talks
Join local industry leaders and change-makers inside the Fremantle Town Hall as they discuss circularity, sustainability, and the future of fashion.
📍Walyalup Koort, 8 William Street, Fremantle
https://events.humanitix.com/freo-fashion-festival
Spookfest 26
31 October 7pm – 11:55pm
Unicorn presents Spookfest 26 where Halloween descends on the Buffalo Club for one night only. 2 stages! 9 bands!!
Double headliners The Floors and Guild lead the charge joined by Unicorn, Noah Skape, Hip Priest, ParmeZan, Phantom Island, Ursula, and Old Time Sing Song Man across two stages.
Fancy dress, if you dare. Ghouls, ghosts, monsters, witches, the undead and everything in between — come as your worst nightmare, or come as you are. The choice is yours.
The Buffalo Club transforms into Perth’s darkest Halloween gathering. Come face your fate.
📍Buffalo Club Fremantle
https://events.humanitix.com/spookfest-2026
If there’s any missed local shows and events that are about to open, do make sure to email Gayle so we can include your show, event, gig.
* Arts Scene Around Freo is compiled by our Arts Editor, Gayle O’Leary. If you’d like your community event listed email Gayle here.
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