MUMA

Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA is now open Mist moves through the exhibition as a metaphor. This phenomenon signifies instability, unknowing as a means of knowing and refusal of cultural reductionism. Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA is the first major solo exhibition in Australia of the London-based Balinese New Zealand/Aotearoan artist. Spanning the breadth of Spong’s practice, it includes film, sculpture, textiles and drawings and features two new works commissioned for the exhibition. 🌫️Visit Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA now at MUMA, Caulfield, until 27 June 🌫️ 🔗Find out more via link in bio 🔗 Artist Sriwhana Spong @sriwhana Curated by MUMA Senior Curator Pip Wallis and Melanie Oliver @pip_wallis @melanie_oliver This project is supported by Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa and the Henry Moore Foundation. Images: Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA, 2026, installation view, Monash University Museum of Art, Naarm/Melbourne. Photos: Andrew Curtis #sriwhanaspong #contemporaryart #mumamonash

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, Tarquin Manek, 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 🔗 @sriwhana @pipwallis @liquid_architecture

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: @andrewcurtis.art.doc (1), MUMA (4 & 5) @tommccamon (3, 6 & 7). 2. Gamelan Digul performance 1999 @sriwhana @icomofficiel @Monash University #MuseumsinaDividedWorld #InternationalMuseumDay #sriwhanaspong #gamelan #gamelandigul

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 queer 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 queer 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 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, and an introduction 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. @pip_wallis @sriwhana @perimeterbooks @stephanieberlangieri

Join MUMA Curator Pip Wallis for a free 30-minute tour of Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA Tuesday 12 May, 11–11.30am book now via link in bio @pip_wallis @sriwhana Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA is presented by Monash University Museum of Art | Melbourne in partnership with Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, Wellington and supported by Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa and the Henry Moore Foundation. #sriwhanaspong #mumamonash

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. 🔗register via link in bio🔗 @varendorff @_justineclark @_parlour @flackstudio_ @rebecca_coates @pip_wallis #MelbourneDesignWeek #NGV #CreativeVic #CreativeState @ngvmelbourne @creative_vic

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! link in bio #werehiring #jobs #monashuniversity

The 100-year-old Gamelan Digul was made by Indonesian prisoners in exile using salvaged scrap metal. For more, visit @sbs.indonesian (link in bio). #MUMA #gamelandigul

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. @sriwhana @pip_wallis @liquid_architecture This project is supported by Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa and the Henry Moore Foundation. Images: ‘Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA’ opening. Photos: @tommccammon

🎵 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 #GamelanDigul #SriwhanaSpongHAHAHA #SriwhanaSpong #LiquidArchitecture

MUMA is pleased to announce the forthcoming exhibition catalogue Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA, co-published with Perimeter Editions, to accompany Spong’s major solo exhibition opening at MUMA Thursday 23 April. Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA Edited by Stephanie Berlangieri and Pip Wallis Design by Narelle Brewer for Perimeter Bureau Co-published by MUMA and Perimeter Editions 🔗 Pre-order now available 🔗 Working across film, sculpture, performance and writing, Spong’s practice explores how knowledge is approached, framed and made perceptible. Her works often begin with a small or contingent encounter – a text, image, living organism or historical trace – which becomes the starting point for extended inquiry. Following these traces through experiential and research-based processes, Spong develops works that reframe understandings of time and the entanglement of human and non-human life. New texts by Vera Mey, May Adadol Ingawanij, Tessa Laird and poet Ariana Reines situate Spong’s work within expanded fields of cinema, speculative poetics and embodied knowledge. A personal text by the artist reflects on questions of naming, inheritance and cultural transmission. Together, these contributions trace the conceptual threads running through Spong’s practice, offering new perspectives on the ways her work engages memory, history and embodied forms of knowledge. 208 pages, 17 x 24 cm, OTA-bind softcover with flaps, Perimeter Editions x MUMA (Naarm / Melbourne). @sriwhana @pip_wallis @stephanieberlangieri @arianareines @_mey_day @perimeterbooks #exhibitioncatalogue