Manningham Art Gallery presents two exhibitions of tactile, abstract works that recontextualise commonly encountered materials, celebrating the everyday and unpredictable process driven experimentation. 

Anni Hagberg’s Trace Encounters employs foraging practices, ceramic processes, and experimental installation to explore uncertainty as a contemporary human condition.

Rejecting linear understandings of progress, foraging practices embody a sense of agnostic curiosity. Opportunistically engaging materials, which present themselves within the environment through the process of being discarded by one and found by another, foraging encourages lively interaction with the environment.

Rhys Cousins work homes in on otherwise ordinary and ignored surfaces that one might expect to encounter on any given day. It acknowledges life as complex sensory jigsaw, but deliberately strips away the smells, sounds, language, and colour of that puzzle to explore only touch and the external physical qualities of the myriad materials that make up the urban places we live.

Examining the importance of touch as a physical and emotional experience - helping us to make sense of the world, the work also highlights how texture is made as much through presence as absence, with the solid bumps and ridges in a surface playing as great a role in creating its overall texture as its voids, crevices, nooks, and cracks.

Cousins and Hagberg’s works are activated across Gallery 1 and 2. 

Installation View, Manningham Art Gallery, March 2022. Photo by Charlie Kinross. 

Join us as we officially open Pettys Reserve following major upgrade works!

Enjoy loads of FREE family fun including:

• sausage sizzle

• face painting

• temporary tattoos

• roving entertainment

• watch a NPL2 game - Manningham United Blues FC vs Werribee City FC

• see a children’s all abilities session in action, hosted by Macedon Blues United FC.

• plus soccer personalities and more!

Upgrade works at Pettys Reserve have included construction of:

• purpose built, full size floodlit synthetic soccer pitches

• a pavilion, including spectator area

• an asphalt car park

Come along and check them out!

This project has been delivered by Manningham Council in partnership with the Victorian Government.

If you have rooftop solar and are starting to consider a battery and/or electric vehicle (EV), you need to 'future-proof' your existing solar to ensure that you have capacity for these new technologies as they become more common and attainable.

This free information session will help you:

• understand how solar and batteries work
• find out whether your existing solar has capacity to add a battery and charge an EV
• understand how to 'future-proof' your household by upsizing your solar and/or adding a battery
• calculate expected savings and payback
• understand how to claim government rebates

All Manningham residents who attend on the night will go into the draw to win a Virtual Home Energy Assessment worth $225!

This phone assessment will be tailored to your household, helping you to plan for a cost-effective and comfortable transition away from gas. We may contact the winner to check on progress in both reducing bills and making the home more energy efficient.

To attend this event, you must have an internet enabled PC or device and be able to download Zoom. Don’t have Zoom? Download it for free. You’ll be provided with the Zoom meeting link when you book.

This free information session is brought to you by Manningham and the Australian Energy Foundation. If you're unable to make the session, you can still learn more about how to keep your home cool while saving energy on the Australian Energy Foundation website.

Sport and gambling don’t have to go together.

Club representatives and coaches, we’d love you to join us for a conversation and find out how you can have a positive influence on players, teams, and club culture.

Find out how gambling impacts your sporting community, and what you can do to help reduce the risk of harm.

Together, we can make a difference.

Hear from experts and community voices who will speak about the challenges, effects of gambling on young people and help clubs, coaches and sport volunteers understand the role they play in developing and influencing teams and players at their club.

Let’s work together to raise awareness in our sporting communities, connect and find ways to reduce gambling harm.

Help shape community services in the mental health space and get paid for your time!

Access Health invites young people in Manningham to co-design an approach to increase mental health service access for multicultural groups.

Who can participate

We are looking for people who:

• are aged 18 to 25 years old
• live, work or study in Manningham, and
• have families that speak a language other than English at home.

All participants will be paid $80 for attending. 

How to register

Register online to express your interest to participate.

We will contact you once your application has been received and confirm your place in the session. 

We look forward to talking with you about how we can improve access to mental health services for young people whose families speak a language other than English at home.

This online webinar will provide tips on creating healthy, affordable lunchboxes for all ages.

We’re partnering with Nutrition Australia for two free online webinars as part of Healthy Lunchbox Week - 9 to 15 February 2025.

• Healthy lunchbox tips for kindergarten and school starters
• Budget-friendly lunchbox tips

Learn how to:

• balance key food groups
• keep grocery costs down
• save time with simple prep
• change it up with a recipe and leftover ideas.

Presented by Monash Council, City of Kingston, Knox City Council, Manningham Council, and Maroondah City Council.

Manningham Council's Citizen Science program inspires a new body of work by ceramic artist Matt Butterworth.

These intimate sculptures question narratives surrounding function and beauty.

Beauty Disrupted (detail view). Image courtesy of the artist.

Disc Golf is a fun recreational activity for everyone!

The aim of the game is to throw your disc (similar to a frisbee) from the tee pad into the basket in the least number of throws.

At this come and try session members of the Melbourne Disc Golf Club will show you how to hold, throw and putt. Once you've got the hang of how it all works, you'll have the chance to play on the brand new, recently updated course.

No prior experience is required for this event. This event is suitable for families, all ages, all genders and all abilities.

Please note: entry is free but registrations are required.

Ruffey Lake Park Disc Golf Course is located near the Church Road entrance, just off King Street. 

This activity is hosted by Melbourne Disc Golf.

Want to find out more about Disc Golf? Visit Melbourne Disc Golf Club.

Calling all people from multicultural backgrounds in Manningham and surrounds!

Come and learn more about the importance of looking after your mental health and wellbeing, and the support that is available in your local community.

Our next Strength Through Connection event is a forum on Mental Health and Multicultural Communities as part of national Mental Health Week.

This event will feature:

• specialists in multicultural mental health
• a panel of experts
• local mental health and wellbeing service providers
• plus the launch of Manningham Council's mental health services webpage by Mayor Michelle Kleinert

Mental health is a key component of overall health and well-being. 1 in 5 (21.4 per cent) Australians aged 16 to 85 have experienced a mental disorder in the past 12 months.

Many people may not be aware of what poor mental health means, how to support someone or how they can get help. The individual needs, backgrounds and identities of people can impact how, or even whether, they will seek support.

We will have a broad range of speakers who will provide information about:

• types of mental health issues
• stories of lived experience
• what treatments are available
• how can you support someone
• how to get help
• hope for recovery

We look forward to seeing you there!

Have you had enough of rising energy bills? Do you feel like your bills are swallowing up your earnings?

It's time to take control! This webinar, ‘Reduce Your Energy Bills!’ is your ticket to a smart, more affordable and comfortable home. Learn how to create an efficient haven that nurtures your family, benefits your wallet and cares after the planet.

Connect with the best! Learn how to find the right energy plan and how to choose between the fog of so many offers. It may be confusing to navigate but we can help you knock down those overpriced bills!

See the power and direct the current! Learn about simple energy monitors that show you real-time energy usage. We'll show you how these clever tools reveal appliance costs and makes it easy to manage them.

Get practical - get rewarded! We highlight the best energy efficiency methods tailored for Australian homes. From insulation, draught proofing, windows and appliance upgrades, we'll show you where to start, what elements deserve attention now and how to optimize your appliances for results.

Don't miss this opportunity to unlock the full potential of your home and embark on a journey towards a more energy-efficient future.

Our presenter, Ian Moxon, is a seasoned sustainability consultant with over 15 years of experience in this field and 20 years living ‘Off-Grid’. He’ll share his extensive knowledge and valuable industry insights into the benefits of installing solar power and solar batteries at your home.

This event is part of our Inspired Living Series. This series showcases an exciting range of fun and sustainable activities and events for all ages, supporting sustainability at home, in the community and at work.

Bookings are essential.

Want to improve your cardio fitness? Want to build leg strength while you're sitting down? Carol has a great seated cardio class for you, so you can work on your coordination and heart health all from your kitchen chair.

This class is aimed at anyone who wants to improve their health and boost energy levels. It includes time to chat with Carol before and after class if you want to talk about your personal fitness goals and how Third Age Fitness can help you.

Class is completely free, and you just need to have access to a chair.

Taking its name from the unofficial description of the present day epoch which has seen human activity dramatically impact the earth's climate and ecology, this exhibition is the expression of four artists' efforts to record, reflect upon and potentially enact change in how humanity views and interacts with the world.

Shifting the Anthropocene features the work of Lesley Duxbury, Ruth Johnstone, Rosie Weiss and Stephen Wickham, who have variously photographed underwater ecosystems and stunning 400 year old eucalypts, and collected and drawn remnants of plants destroyed by bushfire, amongst other creative acts.

The works are descriptions of the immediate and personal effects of climate change as the artists have witnessed them. They also pivot to celebrate instances where individuals and communities have saved endangered species or enacted changes in environment laws through collective effort, thereby giving a hopeful and positive tenor to the exhibition overall.

Installation view of artworks by Lesley Duxbury. Photo by Charlie Kinross.