Araluen Arts Centre

The Araluen Arts Centre operates as the visual art and performance hub of Central Australia, presenting an annual programmes of exhibitions, performances, and film. Known as the keeping place of stories, Araluen holds within its spaces some of the most significant works of art in Central Australia and invites artists from all over the world to present at the centre.

The centre was opened in response to the Alice Springs community’s lack of a central hub for artistic achievement and experimentation. Built around a culturally significant 300-year-old corkwood tree that now sits in the centre of the Sculpture Garden, the Araluen Arts Centre is the heart of the Araluen Cultural Precinct. The Precinct includes the Galleries and Theatre, the Museum of Central Australia including the Strehlow Research Centre, the Central Australian Aviation Museum, Central Craft and a number of significant public works of art and Arrernte sacred sites. The Araluen Cultural Precinct is set amongst important Arrernte sites significant to the local Arltyerre (Dreaming) including yaye (big sister hill), yaye akweke (little sister hill) and a sacred 300-year-old corkwood tree.

One of the core initiatives of the centre is Desert Mob, a yearly exhibition, symposium and marketplace that gathers together Desart member art centres from across the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. For over 25 years it has been an interface between Aboriginal art making in remote desert communities and the wider world.