Lunar New Year at the NGV

Overview

Spend your Saturday celebrating Chinese art and culture when the NGV rings in the Chinese New Year with a full day program of workshops, tours, performances, music and food. It'll all go down on Saturday, February 9 from 10am–4pm — and it's absolutely free.

Start off with a guided tour of the gallery's Chinese and Asian art collections — it spans a whopping four millennia of culture and history through artist mediums such as sculpture, ceramics, jade, calligraphy and prints. They'll be running throughout the day, with a curator's tour at 11am. Traditional paper cutting and good luck couplet making workshops will also run in the morning, with no booking necessary.

Musical acts DJ Small Fry and The Film School Collective will each perform, too — the latter combines contemporary electronic music with traditional Chinese acoustic instruments in a performance that's a mix of composed and improvised work.

In the afternoon, relax outdoors in the Grollo Equiset Garden and learn the ancient art of tai chi in an introductory class. Then chow down on dumplings, noodles and desserts, which will be on offer in the Great Hall throughout the day. For the full list of events, check out the NGV International website.