Fugitive Archives: A spoken future
Fugitive Archives: A spoken future opens 9 October at MADA Gallery, Caulfield, a two-part exhibition co-curated by art collectives, Saluhan Collective and The Great Book Return. It asks: can archives tell us about our futures?
Fugitive Archives is an ambitious curatorial project led by Saluhan Collective collaborators MJ Flamiano and Catherine Ortega-Sandow, developed during their 2025 curatorial residency at Monash Art, Design and Architecture, Caulfield (MADA). The project examines the role of artist-led, community-based, and independent archives as transformative tools for collective organising and knowledge production.
The first exhibition, Fugitive Archives: Otherwise or elsewhere explored the tangled relationships between the artist and the archive, focusing on artists of Filipino heritage based in the Philippines, the UK, the US, and Australia in conversation with Pagbasa Archive. “Fugitive Archives is deeply rooted in critical inquiry, self-authorship and the presentation of voices historically underrepresented within Western institutions,” say MJ Flamiano and Catherine Ortega-Sandow.
The second exhibition is presented in two parts with Anna Emina and Celine Saoud, co-founders of The Great Book Return. At MADA Gallery, Fugitive Archives: A spoken future, showcases materials on Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, borrowed exclusively from the Monash University Library and Special Collections archive. It centres the future possibilities of peoples and cultures who are acknowledged by their proximity to war, displacement and genocide, rather than their lives. The gallery is transformed into a reading room featuring books, maps, articles and travel guides, which document the resistance, achievements, culture and daily life of Arab people. “In acknowledging our joy, we find freedom and resilience to consider our traditions, our languages, our foods, our natural landscapes, and above all, our futures. Hope that we can draw, cook, build, write or think is a powerful tool of resistance,” says Celine Saoud.
Part two of A spoken future opens 18 October at Dukkana, Coburg, with contemporary artist Majed Fayad presented alongside the original archive collection of The Great Book Return, de-centering institutional authority and inviting audiences into community and artist-led ways of working.
“Bringing together The Great Book Return and the Arab-futurist practice of Majed Fayad, this exhibition showcases a realistic understanding of injustice and oppression, with a firm belief in the possibility of a better future. By acknowledging the generations past and present – their lived experiences of violence and occupation, and their perseverance and resistance – we create space where visitors can autonomously, and creatively, imagine their own memories, dreams and futures,” says Anna Emina.
A spoken future runs until Saturday 25 October at MADA Gallery, and until Saturday 1 November at Dukkana.
Event Details
- Date:
- 9 October 2025 at 12:00 am – 25 October 2025 at 12:00 am
- Venue:
- MADA Gallery
- Categories:
- Fine Art; Gallery / Exhibition; Gallery: MADA Gallery
Description
Fugitive Archives: A spoken future opens 9 October at MADA Gallery, Caulfield, a two-part exhibition co-curated by art collectives, Saluhan Collective and The Great Book Return. It asks: can archives tell us about our futures?
Fugitive Archives is an ambitious curatorial project led by Saluhan Collective collaborators MJ Flamiano and Catherine Ortega-Sandow, developed during their 2025 curatorial residency at Monash Art, Design and Architecture, Caulfield (MADA). The project examines the role of artist-led, community-based, and independent archives as transformative tools for collective organising and knowledge production.
The first exhibition, Fugitive Archives: Otherwise or elsewhere explored the tangled relationships between the artist and the archive, focusing on artists of Filipino heritage based in the Philippines, the UK, the US, and Australia in conversation with Pagbasa Archive. “Fugitive Archives is deeply rooted in critical inquiry, self-authorship and the presentation of voices historically underrepresented within Western institutions,” say MJ Flamiano and Catherine Ortega-Sandow.
The second exhibition is presented in two parts with Anna Emina and Celine Saoud, co-founders of The Great Book Return. At MADA Gallery, Fugitive Archives: A spoken future, showcases materials on Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, borrowed exclusively from the Monash University Library and Special Collections archive. It centres the future possibilities of peoples and cultures who are acknowledged by their proximity to war, displacement and genocide, rather than their lives. The gallery is transformed into a reading room featuring books, maps, articles and travel guides, which document the resistance, achievements, culture and daily life of Arab people. “In acknowledging our joy, we find freedom and resilience to consider our traditions, our languages, our foods, our natural landscapes, and above all, our futures. Hope that we can draw, cook, build, write or think is a powerful tool of resistance,” says Celine Saoud.
Part two of A spoken future opens 18 October at Dukkana, Coburg, with contemporary artist Majed Fayad presented alongside the original archive collection of The Great Book Return, de-centering institutional authority and inviting audiences into community and artist-led ways of working.
“Bringing together The Great Book Return and the Arab-futurist practice of Majed Fayad, this exhibition showcases a realistic understanding of injustice and oppression, with a firm belief in the possibility of a better future. By acknowledging the generations past and present – their lived experiences of violence and occupation, and their perseverance and resistance – we create space where visitors can autonomously, and creatively, imagine their own memories, dreams and futures,” says Anna Emina.
A spoken future runs until Saturday 25 October at MADA Gallery, and until Saturday 1 November at Dukkana.