Fugitive Archives
Led by Saluhan collaborators, MJ Flamiano and Catherine Ortega-Sandow, Fugitive Archives is a curatorial project that examines the role of archives in shaping the critical imagination of contemporary artists.
Drawing on the work of theorists, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, the project positions independent archives and artistic practices as powerful forms of collective organising and knowledge production. Fugitive Archives centres the work of historically marginalised artists operating from First Nations, colonised, migrant, trans or queer perspectives.
Moten and Harney posit that these ways of working have the capacity to challenge institutional power dynamics in the western world and self-organise towards intellectual and social justice for marginalised artists and communities.
Exhibition 1 explores how the university, a pillar for the production and dissemination of Western epistemology, can interact with new archival practices to foster alternative approaches to preserving and disseminating knowledge.
The exhibition features artists: Alfred Marasigan (PH), Czar Kristoff J.P. (PH), Gary Lee (AUS), Lesley-Anne Cao (PH), Nice Buenaventura (PH), Pagbasa Archive (AUS), Pio Abad (UK), Stephanie Misa (AU), and Stephanie Syjuco (US)—many exhibiting in Melbourne for the first time.
Using artist-facilitated archives as the departure point for each exhibition, exhibition 1 will feature Pagbasa, an experimental archive of contemporary Filipino art, design, text, sound, ephemera, performance, and video by Catherine Ortega-Sandow. Drawing on theorist Sandra Harding’s concepts of feminist epistemology and epistemic privilege, the exhibition presents new perspectives on the objects of knowledge traditionally found in colonial archives.
This iteration of Pagbasa will include a reading room situated within the exhibition using the modular hanging system previously fabricated for Pagbasa’s residencies at Mission to Seafarers Victoria and SEVENTH Gallery. In addition to the fabrication of a communal table and stools to suit the site-specific configurations of MADA Gallery. There will be a selection of texts and ephemera from Pagbasa’s archive available to students, academics, and visitors to use in their own research during gallery hours and public programs. By situating this exhibition within a university context, the curators invite critique of the historical narratives and intellectual paradigms of institutions to generate new discourse.
Read more about our 2025 MADA Gallery Curators in Residence: MJ Flamiano and Catherine Ortega-Sandow.
Event Details
- Date:
- 30 July 2025 at 12:00 am – 18 August 2025 at 12:00 am
- Venue:
- MADA Gallery
- Categories:
- Fine Art; Gallery / Exhibition; Gallery: MADA Gallery
Description
Led by Saluhan collaborators, MJ Flamiano and Catherine Ortega-Sandow, Fugitive Archives is a curatorial project that examines the role of archives in shaping the critical imagination of contemporary artists.
Drawing on the work of theorists, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, the project positions independent archives and artistic practices as powerful forms of collective organising and knowledge production. Fugitive Archives centres the work of historically marginalised artists operating from First Nations, colonised, migrant, trans or queer perspectives.
Moten and Harney posit that these ways of working have the capacity to challenge institutional power dynamics in the western world and self-organise towards intellectual and social justice for marginalised artists and communities.
Exhibition 1 explores how the university, a pillar for the production and dissemination of Western epistemology, can interact with new archival practices to foster alternative approaches to preserving and disseminating knowledge.
The exhibition features artists: Alfred Marasigan (PH), Czar Kristoff J.P. (PH), Gary Lee (AUS), Lesley-Anne Cao (PH), Nice Buenaventura (PH), Pagbasa Archive (AUS), Pio Abad (UK), Stephanie Misa (AU), and Stephanie Syjuco (US)—many exhibiting in Melbourne for the first time.
Using artist-facilitated archives as the departure point for each exhibition, exhibition 1 will feature Pagbasa, an experimental archive of contemporary Filipino art, design, text, sound, ephemera, performance, and video by Catherine Ortega-Sandow. Drawing on theorist Sandra Harding’s concepts of feminist epistemology and epistemic privilege, the exhibition presents new perspectives on the objects of knowledge traditionally found in colonial archives.
This iteration of Pagbasa will include a reading room situated within the exhibition using the modular hanging system previously fabricated for Pagbasa’s residencies at Mission to Seafarers Victoria and SEVENTH Gallery. In addition to the fabrication of a communal table and stools to suit the site-specific configurations of MADA Gallery. There will be a selection of texts and ephemera from Pagbasa’s archive available to students, academics, and visitors to use in their own research during gallery hours and public programs. By situating this exhibition within a university context, the curators invite critique of the historical narratives and intellectual paradigms of institutions to generate new discourse.
Read more about our 2025 MADA Gallery Curators in Residence: MJ Flamiano and Catherine Ortega-Sandow.