Opening next week: Fugitive Archives: Otherwise or Elsewhere at MADA Gallery, Naarm/Melbourne.
Fugitive Archives is a curatorial project by @s_a_l_u_h_a_n collaborators @mjflamiano and @catherineortegasandow at MADA Gallery. Through two exhibitions and a series of public programs, the project examines artist-led, community-based, and independent archives as transformative tools for collective organising and knowledge production.
Foregrounding voices from historically underrepresented positions—particularly Filipino/x and BIPOC artists—Fugitive Archives reflects Saluhan Collective’s coalitional ethos and critically engages with Monash University’s library collections and MUMA archives. Positioned within the university, the project exposes gaps in institutional representation and cultural memory.
The first exhibition, Fugitive Archives: Otherwise or Elsewhere (30 July–16 August), presents a new site-specific iteration of the Pagbasa Archive Reading Room alongside works by contemporary 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.
Image: House covered in white tarp (Muntinlupa City), 2017, Czar Kristoff J.P.