Installation view of a contemporary art exhibition dominated by shades of pink. Long, textured fabric and yarn pieces hang from the ceiling on the left, while a dense curtain of pink cords creates a partition on the right. Pink garments and sculptural textile works are displayed on the back wall in a softly lit gallery with a terrazzo floor.

Shan Michaels: Can Touch This

A touch-first, immersive environment that invites exploration with hands, body and sound.

Shan Michaels

Presented by Metro Arts

Dates

19 Nov - 19 Dec 2026

Galleries

Gallery One

Opening Night

Thursday 19 November, 6pm

Public Programming

To be announced

Gallery hours:

Monday-Wednesday: 10am-5pm
Thursday and Friday: 10am-6pm
Saturdays: 2pm-6pm
Sundays: 9am-12:30pm

About

Can Touch This is a tactile, participatory installation that invites audiences into intimate encounters with texture, sensation and proximity. Created by regional Queensland artist Shan Michaels in collaboration with the BLV (blind and low vision) community, the work reimagines touch as both material and metaphor, exploring access, desire and refusal.

Through soft sculptural forms and playful provocation, Michaels’ unsettles assumptions about contact, control and embodied agency. Visitors are invited to deprioritise sight – leading their experience in the space through touch, and immersion in the sensory soundtrack developed by collaboraitng composter Antony Abbraciavento. Through a series of tactile environments, soft-sculptural-play & seating, and wearable costumes, Can Touch This shifts focus away from the visual in this visual art exhibition.

The exhibition will also be accompanied by a public program developed with and for Brisbane’s blind and low vision communities – to be announced in our What’s On listings.

Presented in partnership with ACE (Adelaide Contemporary Experimental).

Shan Michaels is a queer textile artist from regional Queensland whose practice explores how ordinary objects become repositories of memory, identity, and belonging. Working with reclaimed domestic materials and stitched language, she creates tactile artworks that invite participation, reflection, and dialogue. Through a practice that is both tender and radical, she uses softness as a methodology for reclaiming stories, expanding access, and reimagining care. As the mother of a legally blind child, she has developed a long-standing relationship with the blind and low vision community, which continues to shape her collaborative and accessible approach to making.

INSTAGRAM

Headshot by Embellysh.

Acknowledgements

Can Touch This by Shan Michaels is a collaboration between Metro Arts and Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE).

Metro Arts’ 2026 program is supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its funding and advisory body. Metro Arts is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and the Visual Art, Craft and Design Framework, an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments.

Image credit: Can Touch This (2025), installation, Adelaide Contemporary Experimental. Photography by Andre Castellucci.