MUMA’s First 2026 Exhibition Examines Spiritual and Embodied Knowledge Amid Global Distrust

Knowing Otherwise
7 February – 2 April 2026

Naarm/Melbourne, Australia: Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA, will open 2026 with Knowing Otherwise from 7 February to 2 April, a group exhibition exploring how artists are enacting ancestral, spiritual and embodied forms of knowledge amid eroding trust in government and dominant Western frameworks.

Knowing Otherwise foregrounds both historical and contemporary practices that challenge who has the power to define knowledge. It brings together five new commissions (Paola Balla (Wemba Wemba, Gunditjmara), Carla Cescon, Mel Deerson, Clare Milledge and Karina Utomo), works from the Monash University Collection (Gail Mabo (Meriam), Naminapu Maymuru-White), Tracey Moffatt and Heather B. Swann), and key works from Australian and international artists (Yin-Ju Chen, David Egan, Leyla Stevens and Suzanne Treister).

Among the featured artists are Vali Myers and Rosaleen Norton, visionary, fiercely independent artists who have been historically neglected within art history, and sensationalised in the media. Knowing Otherwise recognises them as ‘foremothers’, offering vital artistic precedents grounded in intuition, ritual and esoteric traditions.

‘Knowing Otherwise invites us to rethink the assumptions that shape dominant Western knowledge systems. It asks what happens when artists turn towards the unseen, the ancestral and the intuitive—forms of knowledge that have endured despite dismissal or suppression. This exhibition honours those traditions and brings them into urgent dialogue with the present,’ says Dr Rebecca Coates, Director, Monash University Museum of Art.

‘Across the new commissions, the exhibition shows how artists are finding contemporary languages for ancestral and esoteric knowledge. Paola Balla’s altar-like installation unites Mok Mok and the Black Madonna as matriarchal figures of resistance. Mel Deerson's video work reimagines the medieval walled garden through queer embodiment and nocturnal ritual, while Karina Utomo links gong resonance with Javanese Kejawen cosmology and the collective life of bees to trace how spirituality adapts within the diaspora,’ says Stephanie Berlangieri, Curator – Research, Monash University Museum of Art.

Against a backdrop of rising authoritarian populism, extremist movements and declining faith in liberal democracy, the exhibition examines how artists and communities are turning to extra-rational knowledge systems to re-enchant the present and propose meaningful alternatives. Structured across four thematic threads—cosmologies that understand Country as interconnected across sea, sky and land, with particular attention to the stars that guide and connect them; the divine feminine and matriarchal mythologies; the slippage between pagan and Christian traditions; and witchcraft and the historical maligning of women—the exhibition traces how these practices surface and persist. From mysticism and the occult to Indigenous storytelling and ritual, these practices become acts of resistance, imagination and transformation.

Grounded in MUMA’s position as a university art museum—where research, debate and creative inquiry intersect—the exhibition continues the Museum's longstanding interest in the relationship between knowledge and cultural production. It also extends a curatorial lineage that includes the landmark exhibition Believe Not Every Spirit, but Try the Spirits (2015), which introduced new audiences to the visionary nineteenth-century spiritualist artist Georgiana Houghton. The forthcoming publication of the Georgiana Houghton catalogue raisonné, timed to coincide with this exhibition, reinforces MUMA’s commitment to reevaluating spiritual and esoteric practices within art history.

Artists
Paola Balla (Wemba Wemba, Gunditjmara), Carla Cescon, Yin-Ju Chen, Mel Deerson, David Egan, Gail Mabo (Meriam), Naminapu Maymuru-White (Maŋgalili), Clare Milledge, Tracey Moffatt, Vali Myers, Rosaleen Norton, Leyla Stevens, Heather B. Swann, Suzanne Treister, Karina Utomo

ENDS

For media enquiries, please contact: Rhiannon Broomfield, Rhiannon.Broomfield@monash.edu, 0410 596 021

Curators
Stephanie Berlangieri, Amanda Haskard (Gunaikurnai) and Francis E. Parker.

Exhibition Details
Knowing Otherwise
7 February – 2 April 2026
Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA
Ground Floor, Building F, Monash University Caulfield Campus
900 Dandenong Road, Caulfield East VIC 3145
Free entry

Programs
Opening event
Saturday 7 February 2026, 3–5pm

Artist Talks
Saturday 7 February 2026, 2.30pm

Curatorial tours
Tuesday, 17 February 2026, 10–10.30am
Tuesday, 10 February 2026, 10–11am