For Olivia Wu, museums and galleries are “kind of like the modern-day cathedrals”.
“They’re where people seek meaning and what’s actually important,” the 26-year-old said.
Wu started visiting Sydney’s cultural institutions more regularly after COVID, seeking what she missed during lockdown when the buildings were closed.
“Being on our phones, everything is hyper-personalised. I really think that museums are there … [for people] to feel some sort of connection, either emotionally or socially.”
She is part of a trend of younger people visiting Sydney’s museums and galleries. Annual data from the city’s cultural institutions show they are welcoming more people through their doors than before the pandemic.
While the Art Gallery of NSW, whose new Naala Badu building opened to the public at the end of 2022, is recording the most visitors overall – 2.5 million visited last financial year, up from 1.4 million in 2018-19.
At the Australian Museum the numbers almost quadrupled between 2019 and 2024.
Ahead of its 200th anniversary next year, the director of the fifth-oldest natural history museum in the world, Kim McKay, said the increase in visitors has been consistent over a decade, with a bump after the pandemic.
“I’ve been here for 12 years now … and when I joined, visitation at this museum was 340,000 people per year, now it’s up over 1.5 million,” she said.
“If you do the maths, it’s about a 450 per cent increase over [the] 12 years, which is pretty extraordinary.”
McKay said the increase came from free entry introduced after the pandemic, as well as more interactivity in exhibitions, government and donor support for upgrades, and major touring exhibitions such as Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru in the summer of 2024/2025.
About 60 per cent of the museum’s visitors are from Sydney but now about 25 per cent of that group come from Western Sydney, McKay said.
“People get on the train and they come … and spend the whole day here.”
Bree Morse and her four-year-old daughter, Avery Fergus, made the trip from Holsworthy to the Australian Museum last month, a 36-kilometre journey they’ve made at least three times in the past year.
“I didn’t realise it was free until a friend mentioned it, and that is why we went the first time,” Morse said.
“Now it’s just become something that Avery … asks to go to.”
Avery said her favourite part of the museum was hands-on sculpture-making in the Burra play space, an interactive area which incorporates First Nations knowledge and STEM education.
Therese Coogan and her grandson Teddy visit the Australian Museum at least once a fortnight. When asked about his favourite gallery, Teddy had one word: “Dinosaurs”.
“I mostly like the giant T. rex back there,” he said.
While families with dinosaur-obsessed children have always gravitated towards the museum’s prehistoric exhibits, McKay said there was a rising number of 16- to 24-year-old visitors, which she put down to aligning exhibits with the high school curriculum, and ensuring that contemporary issues, like climate change, and First Nations histories were represented.
Increasing the museum’s presence on social media was also important, she said. It now has a partnership with TikTok, with one educational shark video produced by the museum for the platform attracting 8 million views.
The Art Gallery of NSW has also taken steps to attract a younger audience at its Naala Badu building. Every Wednesday, its Art After Hours pop-up bar serves food and drinks until 9pm.
Wu has loved art galleries since her school years, but found herself visiting museums more often in her early 20s.
“As I get older, I have taken more interest in history. Maybe it’s an identity thing, taking more interest in Sydney history,” she said.
“I find that a lot of history and science museums are way more interactive than the art ones. The art ones can sometimes feel a bit pretentious.”
Wu said she liked to visit museums and galleries with her friends and partner, sometimes organising groups to meet up and sketch the objects on display.
“I think it’s a really good conversation starter,” she said. “It’s so much better than doomscrolling.”
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