Margaret Kartomi Gallery of Musical Instruments and Artefacts

cabinet display inside Margaret Kartomi gallery

LOCATION:

Ground Floor Foyer, Performing Arts Centre,
Building 68, 55 Scenic Boulevard,
Monash University, Clayton 3800

OPENING HOURS:

Monday to Friday, 9.00am – 5.00pm

Current Exhibition

ARTISTIC TREASURES FROM SUMATRA AND JAVA

Discover a selection of MAMU’s rare music recordings, musical instruments, theatrical puppets and masks, images, costumes, and textiles. Collected by Margaret and Hidris Kartomi, and Karen S. Kartomi Thomas on field trips in Sumatra and Java from the 1970s to the present time, the objects are explored further in a series of documentaries and audio-visual samples. Objects from other donors and researchers tell the story of how the collection was formed and its significance today

View Exhibition Catalogue:

View interview with Margaret Kartomi:

Permanent Display

THE GAMELAN DIGUL

Browse this unparalleled ensemble of gamelan instruments built from any materials at hand by Indonesian anti-colonialists in the Boven Digul Dutch prison camp in 1927.

Listen to recordings of the Gamelan Digul:

About us

The Gallery is the public face of the Music Archive of Monash University (MAMU), which is hosted by the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance. Managed by a dedicated team of volunteers and housed in the Menzies Building/Building 11, MAMU contains some of the finest and rarest collections of the world’s sound and material arts.

Its collections and bequests focus mainly on the arts of Southeast and South Asia, the Asia-Pacific, Australia, Baghdadi and Ashkenazy Jewry, and Europe. The Gallery is named after Margaret Kartomi AM, FAHA, an ethnomusicologist who has published many books and articles on Indonesian and other music, and was employed in Monash University’s School of Music from 1969 to 2020, including as its Head throughout the 1990s.

Contact us