Monash University Museum of Art

Monash University Museum of Art Ground Floor, Building F, Monash University Caulfield Campus. Tue–Fri 10am–5pm, Sat 12–5pm Free Entry

National Reconciliation Week, from 27 May to 3 June every year, commemorates two reconciliation milestones in our histor...
27/05/2026

National Reconciliation Week, from 27 May to 3 June every year, commemorates two reconciliation milestones in our history—the successful 1967 referendum and the High Court Mabo decision.

In recognising this year’s theme ‘All in’—a call for everyone to be an active participant in reconciliation—we’re sharing Matthew Harris’s monumental suite of paintings recently acquired into the Monash University Collection.

Harris’s ‘Consigned to Oblivion’ 2023 draws on the artist’s experience of encountering ancestral remains in an overseas museum, presented within a problematic institutional framework. Acknowledging the ongoing campaign by First Nations communities for repatriation, Harris offers a reflective reclamation of this shared history with care.

Depicting museum storage with endless shelves of archival boxes, each box is rendered with layers of white ochre—often reserved for sorry business—framed in black charcoal and presented at true-to-life museum storage scale, inviting viewers to bear witness.

We’re proud to care for this work, which will enrich learning and encourage truth-telling about our shared histories for our community and all who encounter it.

❤️🖤💛
View this work in ‘Between Waves’, a NETS Victoria touring exhibition, currently showing at Mildura Arts Centre until 12 July.






Image: Matthew Harris, Consigned to Oblivion 2024, ochre and acrylic binder on linen, 198 x 167 cm per panel, Monash University Collection, Purchased 2025.

25/05/2026

✨ Dreams, medieval manuscripts and shared making with Mel Deerson in MUMA’s Education Lab 🪄

Alongside presenting her new video work Dream of the Empty Garden in Knowing Otherwise, Mel brought the research and sensibilities of her practice into MUMA’s Education Lab through the workshop Contemporary Illuminations.

Drawing on the imagery of dreams and medieval manuscripts, Mel guided hundreds of school students to combine text and image to create their own contemporary illuminations.

The workshop offered students direct insight into an artist’s way of thinking and making, as ideas moved between exhibition, studio, workshop and learning space.

We thank Mel for their generosity, and to the participating schools and students who brought the workshop to life. 💫💙

Happy International Museum Day! Marking this year’s theme, Museums Uniting a Divided World, we’re spotlighting gamelan p...
17/05/2026

Happy International Museum Day! Marking this year’s theme, Museums Uniting a Divided World, we’re spotlighting gamelan practice in Sriwhana Spong’s solo exhibition HA HA HA.

HA HA HA features Spong’s ever‑expanding personal orchestra, inspired by the Balinese gamelan—an ensemble of percussive instruments traditionally tuned to the specific pitch of the village to which it belongs—presented alongside the historic Gamelan Digul.

The Gamelan Digul is a Javanese instrument made in 1927 by Surakarta-born musician and political activist Bapak Pontjopangrawit (1893–c.1965) and fellow prisoners at the Dutch colonial camp at Tanah Merah, on the Digul River (West Irian). Constructed from materials at hand, it features food tins, old doors and animal hides. Brought to Australia by the “Digulists,” it was presented to the Museum of Victoria in 1946 and later transferred to Monash University in 1976.

In a rare activation, the Gamelan Digul was played at the opening of HA HA HA. Displayed in the MUMA gallery alongside Spong’s evolving gamelan, it underscores the enduring, collective power of this cultural practice to connect and inspire.

Visit Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA, on view at MUMA until 27 June.

Images: 1 - 7. Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA opening and performance. Photos: .art.doc (1), MUMA (4 & 5) (3, 6 & 7). 2. Gamelan Digul performance 1999



University

Join us at MUMA on Thursday 21 May, 6–8pm, for the launch of Sary Zananiri's book Photographing Biblical Modernity: Fran...
15/05/2026

Join us at MUMA on Thursday 21 May, 6–8pm, for the launch of Sary Zananiri's book Photographing Biblical Modernity: Frank Scholten in British Mandate Palestine (IB Tauris, 2026), with remarks from Associate Professor Michelle Antoinette and Professor Peter Sherlock. All welcome.

📖The book offers the first in-depth appraisal of the archive of Frank Scholten (1881-1942), a q***r Dutch photographer whose work in Palestine between 1921 and 1923 illuminates the intersecting dynamics of modernity, religion, colonialism and masculinity through visual culture.

Sary Zananiri is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Monash University, Naarm/Melbourne, working across scholarship and contemporary visual practice. An artist and cultural historian, his research focuses on visual culture and modern transformations of identity in the Arab World, particularly late Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine. His monograph Photographing Biblical Modernity: Frank Scholten in British Mandate Palestine (IB Tauris, 2026) examines religious communalism, nationalism, and q***r subjectivity through photography. He has co-edited three volumes with Karène Sanchez Summerer and exhibits widely, most recently the Liverpool Powerhouse (2026), Alta Forma (2025), the Qattan Foundation (2023) and University of Groningen Library (2023).

Images: 1. Cover 'Photographing Biblical Modernity: Frank Scholten in British Mandate Palestine'. 2. Sary Zananiri, Michelle Antoinette, Peter Sherlock.

Join us for a special event this Thursday to celebrate the launch of Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA, published to accompany Sp...
10/05/2026

Join us for a special event this Thursday to celebrate the launch of Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA, published to accompany Spong’s solo exhibition now showing at MUMA.✨

The publication will be launched with a conversation between Sriwhana Spong and contributor to the book, Tessa Laird, moderated by MUMA Senior Curator Pip Wallis.

The exhibition catalogue features essays and poetic responses from Ariana Reines, Tessa Laird, Vera Mey, May Adadol Ingawanij and the artist, published by MUMA and Perimeter Edition. The book is edited by MUMA curators Pip Wallis and Stephanie Berlangieri and designed by Narelle Brewer for Perimeter Editions.

🎶 The event will also feature a performance of Spong’s sculptural instruments by students of the Monash University Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance. The instruments created by Spong since 2016 form an evolving personal gamelan which will be brought to life by the performance.

MUMA thanks Dr Anna McMichael and students of the Monash University Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance.

Sriwhana Spong HA HA HA is supported by Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa and the Henry Moore Foundation.

MUMA Talks: Running Into the Wind, or Making Art with Industrial ProcessSat 23 May, 11am – 12pmJoin artist Anna Varendor...
06/05/2026

MUMA Talks: Running Into the Wind, or Making Art with Industrial Process
Sat 23 May, 11am – 12pm

Join artist Anna Varendorff for a wide-ranging discussion on the social, political and gendered nature of making in the art and design spaces. This talk coincides with Anna's major new public art installation repetition is a virtue 2026, the 2026 Ian Potter Sculpture Court Commission in MUMA's forecourt.

In this panel conversation, Varendorff will be joined by Justine Clark, co-founder and director of Parlour: gender, equity, architecture, and Samantha Barrow, curator and Flack Studios General Manager to consider ways that art, design and architecture can be used to shape the worlds we inhabit and imagine.

This conversation will be moderated by MUMA Director, Dr Rebecca Coates.
This event is part of Melbourne Design Week 2026, an initiative of the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

Find out more:
https://www.monash.edu/muma/public-programs/upcoming/u/muma-talks-running-into-the-wind,-or-making-art-with-industrial-process

Reminder — Applications close this Sunday 10 May, 11.55pm for the Visitor Experience Officer role with MUMA!We’re hiring...
06/05/2026

Reminder — Applications close this Sunday 10 May, 11.55pm for the Visitor Experience Officer role with MUMA!

We’re hiring a Visitor Experience Officer (0.8 FTE, continuing) to help create exceptional, engaging experiences for our visitors.

As the first point of contact, you’ll be at the heart of MUMA — welcoming guests, supporting exhibitions, managing reception and the bookshop, and coordinating our volunteer program. You’ll also play a key role behind the scenes, contributing to visitor engagement strategies, organising tours and school visits, and handling essential admin like reporting, database management, and communication planning.

What you’ll bring:
• A passion for contemporary art, culture, and visitor engagement
• Strong organisational and communication skills
• Relevant experience and/or a diploma-level qualification (or equivalent)

If you enjoy working with people, thrive in a collaborative environment, and want to be part of a vibrant university museum, we’d love to hear from you.

🔗 Apply now and help shape memorable visitor experiences at MUMA!
https://careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/job/692880/visitor-experience-officer

Thank you for joining us last Thursday for the launch of ‘Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA’ at MUMA, with an artist talk and per...
29/04/2026

Thank you for joining us last Thursday for the launch of ‘Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA’ at MUMA, with an artist talk and performance of the Gamelan Digul, alongside performance of Spong’s instrument sculptures in partnership with Liquid Architecture.

‘Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA’ runs until 27 June.





This project is supported by Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa and the Henry Moore Foundation.

Images: ‘Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA’ opening. Photos:

Join the MUMA team! We’re hiring a Visitor Experience Officer (0.8 FTE, continuing) to help create exceptional, engaging...
21/04/2026

Join the MUMA team! We’re hiring a Visitor Experience Officer (0.8 FTE, continuing) to help create exceptional, engaging experiences for our visitors.

As the first point of contact, you’ll be at the heart of MUMA — welcoming guests, supporting exhibitions, managing reception and the bookshop, and coordinating our volunteer program. You’ll also play a key role behind the scenes, contributing to visitor engagement strategies, organising tours and school visits, and handling essential admin like reporting, database management, and communication planning.

What you’ll bring:
• A passion for contemporary art, culture, and visitor engagement
• Strong organisational and communication skills
• Relevant experience and/or a diploma-level qualification (or equivalent)

If you enjoy working with people, thrive in a collaborative environment, and want to be part of a vibrant university museum, we’d love to hear from you.

🔗 Apply now and help shape memorable visitor experiences at MUMA! link in bio

🎵 Liquid Architecture and MUMA present a performance of Sriwhana Spong’s instrument sculptures🎵Thursday 23 April, 6–8pm ...
15/04/2026

🎵 Liquid Architecture and MUMA present a performance of Sriwhana Spong’s instrument sculptures🎵

Thursday 23 April, 6–8pm
Free event
All welcome

Musicians Sofia Carbonara, Rama Parwata, Tarquin Manek and Lachlan Anderson respond to Spong’s instrument sculptures which form an evolving personal gamelan. The musicians, who are recognised for their mastery of percussive instrumentation, will create an improvised performance of the sculptures within the gallery.

The performance celebrates the opening of MUMA’s new exhibition, Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA.

In a rare occasion the event will also feature a performance of the Gamelan Digul. This instrument, seldom exhibited or played, was made by activist inmates in 1927 at the Dutch prison camp at Tanah Merah in the jungle on the Digul River, West Irian (now Papua New Guinea) and brought to Australia by the musicians where it is now cared for by the Music Archive of Monash University.

🔗 in bio to find out more and register (first link on the list – Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA Opening + Artist Talk)

Images: Tarquin Manek, Lachlan Anderson, Rama Parwata. Photo: Young Ha Kim and Sofia Carbonara. Photo: Simon Fazio. Sriwhana Spong, ‘Instrument B (Vivian)’, 2016 and ‘The painter-tailor’, 2019-2021 (installation view), The 10th Walters Prize 2021 Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. Images courtesy the artist and Lett Thomas

08/04/2026

Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA
Opening + Artist Talk + Performances
Thursday 23 April at MUMA

5.30pm Sriwhana Spong Artist Talk

6pm Official Opening

The opening night will feature a rare performance on the historic gamelan Digul, an instrument held within the Monash University Music Archive. Constructed in 1927 by Indonesian political prisoners detained in the Dutch colonial prison camp at Tanah Merah in Upper Digul, the instrument is both historically significant and extremely fragile.

MUMA and Liquid Architecture will present a performance of Sriwhana Spong’s instrument sculptures which form an evolving personal gamelan. Musicians Sofia Carbonara, Rama Parwata and Lachlan Anderson, recognised for their mastery of percussive instrumentation, will create an improvised performance of the sculptures within the gallery.

🔗 More information 🔗


Address

900 Dandenong Road
Caulfield East, VIC
3145

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 5pm
Wednesday 10am - 5pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 12pm - 5pm

Telephone

+61399054217

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Monash University Museum of Art posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Museum

Send a message to Monash University Museum of Art:

Shortcuts

Share

Category