STOLON PRESS: FLAT EARTH

STOLON PRESS: FLAT EARTH – MAKING A BOOK IN SPACE AT MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART | MUMA

Stolon Press: Flat earth
29 May – 12 July 2025

Naarm/Melbourne, Australia: Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA, Australia’s leading university art museum, is pleased to announce the opening of Stolon Press: Flat earth on Thursday 29 May 2025. This exhibition, curated by Stolon Press, a Sydney-based art and publishing collective run by Simryn Gill and Tom Melick, in collaboration with MUMA’s Dr Rebecca Coates and Stephanie Berlangieri, explores how an exhibition can be understood as a form of expanded publishing. Flat earth brings together longtime Stolon Press collaborators, Buenos Aires and Montreal-based anthropologist, Elisa Taber, and Lebanese-born, Sydney-based artist Khaled Sabsabi.

“The exhibition continues MUMA’s ongoing enquiry into experimental curatorial and editorial practices, bringing together diverse perspectives to explore themes of decentred geographies, rootedness and localness,’ says Dr Rebecca Coates, Director of MUMA. 

Initially planned to open on 8 May 2025, the exhibition was postponed by Monash University while the University conducted consultations with Monash students and community.

Flat earth is conceived as a flattened map with no hierarchies. The artworks overlap across the galleries as a material gesture toward cohabitation and neighbourliness. Stolon Press will make carpets and mats out of the residue of their printing process with cardboard boxes, which were collected in their neighbourhood in Sydney. These mats, sewn together by hand, will be distributed across the space.

Khaled Sabsabi presents a new and ambitious iteration of Aajyna (1998/2021/2025), a work which paints the gallery walls with layers of a dark roast Lebanese coffee. This work, which draws on Sabsabi’s personal memories of his childhood in Lebanon during the Civil War, will be made with the assistance of staff and students from Monash Art, Design and Architecture.

Elisa Taber writes and translates herself into an absent presence in An Archipelago in a Landlocked Country (2020) / Otra isla rodeada de tierra (Another Island Surrounded by Land) (2026). Her work will be present in the galleries in the form of small audio speakers which hang down from the ceiling, at first silent, into which the author will drop her voice for a single live reading on Tuesday June 27 2025, and then take the form of a text in the subsequent publication.

“A part of MUMA’s 50th anniversary year’s artistic program Stolon Press: Flat earth further reflects our commitment to artistic inquiry in a unique educational context. Each exhibition, event and encounter invites our audiences to re-examine connections between people and narratives that speak to our time and place and a shared future. Grounded in collaboration, conversation and a desire to explore multiple perspectives, this exhibition reaffirms our role as a vital space for bringing people together to share and exchange ideas about contemporary art in a university context,” continues Dr Coates.

Public Programs

Commune: Simryn Gill and Nick Croggon in conversation 
Date: Tuesday 27 May 2025
Time: 6pm
Duration: 75 mins
Location: State Library Victoria, Theatrette
Cost: Free but please register here
Join artist Simryn Gill and art historian Nick Croggon at the State Library Victoria for a discussion on the ethics, poetics and politics of togetherness that underpin Stolon Press.

Stolon Press: Flat earth - Curatorial tours
Dates/times:
Tuesday 3 June, 11am + 2pm
Thursday 5 June, 10am + 2pm
Wednesday 11 June, 10am + 2pm
Location: Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA
Duration: 30 mins
Cost: Free but please register here
Join MUMA’s curatorial team for a guided tour of Stolon Press: Flat earth that will take visitors behind the works and enable reflections on the art to be shared in a supportive environment.

ENDS

For media enquiries, please contact:Rhiannon Broomfield, Publicist, Monash University Museum of Art
Email: Rhiannon.Broomfield@monash.edu
Phone: +61 (0)410 596 021
Website: www.monash.edu/muma
Exhibition Dates: 29 May – 12 July 2025
Location: Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA, Melbourne

Monash University Community Consultation
Stolon Press: Flat earth was initially planned to open on 8 May 2025. Monash University postponed the exhibition to undertake further consultation with Monash University students and broader communities. The process has now concluded. Read Monash University’s statement here.

Monash University’s decision to postpone the exhibition was announced on Tuesday 25 March 2025.

About Stolon Press
Established in 2019 by Tom Melick and Simryn Gill, Stolon Press is a Sydney and Port Dickson-based art and publishing collective working between art and book, image and text. Its name refers to the stolon, a plant stem or runner that propagates where its parts touch the ground, Stolon Press embodies rootedness, connection and collaboration. With a portfolio of twenty publications, the collective works closely with an extended family of artists, writers, and friends to circulate images and texts that might otherwise remain unseen, fostering new ways of thinking and being.

About Elisa Taber
Elisa Taber (born 1990, Asunción, Paraguay. Lives and works Buenos Aires, Argentina; Asunción; and Montreal, Canada) is a writer, literary translator, editor, and researcher. Her first published book An Archipelago in a Landlocked Country (11:11 Press) multi-sequentially shifts in genre from ekphrastic descriptions of 30-second films shot in Asunción, Filadelfia, and Neuland; to a short story collection inspired by metonymically translated Nivaklé myths; and a novella that mythologises the life of a third generation Mennonite woman. Her forthcoming projects include the publication Otra isla rodeada de tierra (Another island surrounded by land); the translation of Horacio Quiroga’s Beyond (Sublunary Editions) and Miguelángel Meza’s Dream Pattering Soles (Ugly Duckling Presse). Her writing and translations have appeared in a wide variety of venues, ranging from the Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute to Words without Borders. With Tom Melick, she runs the experimental pamphlet series, Slug (www.slug.directory).

About Khaled Sabsabi
Khaled Sabsabi (born 1965, Tripoli, Lebanon. Lives and works Sydney and Tripoli) is a socially engaged artist who works across mediums, geographical borders and cultures to create immersive experiences. His work questions the complexities of nationhood, identity and change. Sabsabi has exhibited in over 90 exhibitions in Australia and abroad. His work is held in a number of public and private collections including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney; Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney; and Italy Casoria International Contemporary Art Museum.