String Theory: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art, is a Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) touring exhibition featuring the work of more than 30 Aboriginal artists from across Australia, including the Gerringong-based Boolarng Nangamai Aboriginal Art and Culture studio.

"It's about artists working with the idea of working with fibre, working with textiles," curator Glenn Barkley said.

"The title string theory captures that - it's the scientific theory of everything."

Barkley said the show featured everything from string to photographs of baskets, painting, sculpture and video.

"It's contemporary work, but in some instances it's practices that go back millennia. There's traditional baskets and a great tradition of string-making."

The children's cat's cradle game was invented by Aboriginals and adapted by Europeans.

"The Indigenous people of Yirrkala in the Top End have documented over 200 of these patterns they can make using string."

Barkley said artist Frances Djulibing had turned string into a yam string vine. This was used in Aboriginal ceremony, draped over a body after a person had died.

"People would perform with the yam string. The string was remade for the show, that's not something that's made very often."

String theory runs until August 30.