Overview
Running on Empty is an immersive art exhibition exploring burnout, identity, pressure, and the quiet strength it takes to keep going.
We are not just tired. Many of us are shaped by invisible social structures and historical expectations that still linger quietly in modern life. Inherited standards of productivity, care, perfection and self-sacrifice often go unquestioned, yet they continue to shape how we live and work today.
Held at Dudley House, Running on Empty invites visitors to pause and reflect on what has been normalised. The first part of the exhibition holds space for recognition, asking us to sit with the quiet weight of these expectations.
The second part shifts. Through colour, expression and play, the works explore what it means to grow within these structures, reclaiming creativity, agency and possibility. Here, creativity becomes a quiet act of resistance.
Across two weeks, visitors are invited to move through contrasting spaces of exhaustion and empowerment, heaviness and light. Each room forms part of an emotional journey that is personal, reflective and deeply relatable.
Whether you’re an art lover, a creative spirit, or simply feeling stretched too thin, you may find something here that resonates.
23 April – 3 May
Wednesday – Sunday | 11am – 4pm
Come for a quiet moment. Bring a friend. Pause…. and play.
Key motif: A recurring visual reference within the exhibition is the flamingo — a bird that loses its colour after raising its young and can take time to regain it. This functions as a metaphor for depletion without failure, and for recovery as a gradual, biological process rather than an immediate fix.
An invitation to create: At the centre of the exhibition is a growing community artwork, You Can Hang Your Art With Me. Visitors are invited to contribute small drawings, colours or written fragments, which accumulate over the course of the exhibition to form a collective work.
Exhibition opening times
Thursday 23 April: 11am – 4pm
Friday 24 April: 11am – 4pm
Saturday 25 April: 11am – 4pm
Sunday 26 April: 11am – 4pm
Wednesday 29 April: 11am – 4pm
Thursday 30 April: 11am – 4pm
Friday 1 May: 11am – 4pm
Saturday 2 May: 11am – 4pm
Sunday 3 May: 11am – 4pm
Follow The Power of Play
This Exhibition is supported by the City of Greater Bendigo, as part of the 2026 Artists on View program.
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