Back to All Events

Let’s party like it’s 1815 (Free)


Let’s party like it’s 1815 by Joan Ross is an eight-minute digital artwork on display at the Museum of Sydney that colourfully critiques the legacy of the colonisation of Australia.

Artist Joan Ross assembles what she calls ‘a tableau of greed’, in which colonists display their disregard for nature and self-assumed superiority by partying on land that they have claimed. A fantastical colonial world flecked with Ross’s trademark fluorescent yellow explodes with

fake advertisements for leaf blowers and perfume; mansions, silverware, festivities toasting over ‘their land’; blowflies, bees, celebratory fireworks over a bleak horizon; balloons, lavish curtains, native–non-native plants pollinating with each other, flowers with the heads of colonists; security cameras, butterflies, willy-willies spitting out leather lounges, TVs, lightbulbs, happy couple figurines, pianos, vases, paintings and roast chicken dinners!

Ross presents an insatiable culture of overconsumption, depicting Australian colonisation as ‘a car crash’:

In slow motion we watch the insensitivity and lack of regard – the long-drawn-out slide towards an inevitable crumpled heap. We saw it happening, but we couldn’t stop it; now it’s left for us to clean up.

About Joan Ross

Joan Ross (born in Glasgow) is an Australian artist living in Sydney. Since the late 1980s, Ross has exhibited across a range of mediums, from painting, photography and sculpture to video, installation and virtual reality. Learn more.

Event Details:

  • Dates: 12 April – 2 November 2025

  • Times: Daily 10am–5pm

    Closed Good Friday and Christmas Day

  • Suitable for: All ages 

  • Location: Museum of Sydney

  • Notes: Free entry with registration

More info here.

Note: This post contains an affiliate link. It costs you nothing extra, but we earn a small fee to support our website - thank you!

Earlier Event: 12 April
Sydney Family Show
Later Event: 12 April
Alice In Wonderland