MASS MEMO | 2025

Gentrification haunts Australia’s financial capital.” — Levent Can Kaya.

As a first-timer to anything related to RMIT, this was my first encounter with Sean Godsell’s Design Hub.” — Sage Ardona.

“Celebrate the future of design” is the subtitle of the 2025 MSDx Summer showcase, appearing on both wayfinding panels scattered throughout the Glyn Davis Building and the broader university campus, foregrounding the exhibition’s future-oriented student work.” — Lachlan Hartnett.

Transfixed by ancestral voices, I am ushered towards Justine Walsh’s installation Listening, Singing in the Half-Light (2025).” — Giulia Lallo.

In a small antechamber; Francesca Havelock’s work, lucky charms and a tireless repetition (2025) catches me like a trick.” — Victoria Mathison.

A new WeChat message pops up as I reach the Sydney College of the Arts.” — Lige Qiao.

I did not expect Monash Grad Show to change the way I see the world.” — Eadie Rule.

In the ominous space of UNSW’s “Black Box”, Delaram Sarjami has assembled a bittersweet tribute to Iranian and Afghani needlework.” — Leighlyn Aguilar.

I’m surrounded by the vestiges of unfamiliar landmarks.” — Stella Eaton.

I’ve caught you red-handed—neck craned, thumbs twiddling, primed to scroll.” — Maeve Sullivan.

I was in a post-flu fog as I whirled through RMIT’s five-floors of grad shows.” — Justine Walsh.

Black bird netting forms a semi-permeable canopy above the courtyard of the Old Teachers’ College (turned Sydney College of the Arts campus).” — Mei Lin Meyers.

I like when a painting challenges me—when it lures me in with swatches of colour, abstract forms and spatial orientations that require careful contemplation.” — Alexandra Banning-Taylor.

There is a horror in the near-far hometown, an eerie familiarity that comes from an intimate attachment to place, memory, and belonging.” — Wawe Ransfield.

The NAS grad show is on home turf, in the old Darlinghurst Gaol.” — Sky Zhou.

A bedroom secret nearly escapes, a meal is plated and forgotten fabric begins to mould at the MADA grad show.” — Tilda Njoo.

Amelie Thompson, Kitt Falkner Babbel and Alex Pug Williams invite an unexpected question: what do pigeons reveal about the way we see, and sometimes overlook, the world around us? Falkner Babbel’s dazzling pigeon puzzles, Thompson’s crooked bird-like legs, and Williams’ web of found objects foreground how human perception, creativity, and intervention shape our understanding of the natural and constructed world.” — Amélie Blanc.

Faithful to his washed-up hippy persona, American artist Charles Ray loves to rehash the same hoary anecdotes throughout his lectures and writings.” — Amelia Scholes Gill.

Photographs can be portals.” — Erin Barwood.

Australia is veering wildly off course in meeting its 2030 and 2035 climate targets as policy fails to regulate fossil fuels, sprawl, and consumption.” — Charlotte Schaller.

UNSW Galleries feels haunted.” — Nic Narapiromkwan Foo.

NAS likes it hard.” — Hannah Vlies Lawrence.

What came first, the egg or the orgasm? At the National Art School graduate show, sculpture artists Sarah Parker, Eleni Ioakimidis and Mia McCall engage the body of the viewer in a manner that is at once anxious, erotic and deliriously playful.” — Bineeta Saha.

In the midst of the bustling energy of the SCA’s New Contemporaries opening reception, I found myself looking for a place to slow down.” — Soomin Jeong.

I’ve heard a rumour that some UNSW Honours students live in their studios.” — Miranda Collins.

Across the RMIT graduates’ work, subjectivity is explored less as a personal confession and more as a way of finding one’s bearings.” — Anna Cunningham.

Creative practices that engage with lived experience operate as vital forms of record-keeping, documenting history, transcribing internal thought processes and memorialising emotions.” — Danielle El-Hajj.

I’m at the MADA Grad show on a Saturday and the studios are deserted, but I’m grateful for the solitude.” — Ava Lawton.

The seasons are changing and I’m thinking about temperature - slow-cooking, simmering, burning to a crisp.” — Belle Beasley.

Bachelor of Fine Art, Monash Art, Design and Architecture by Ava Lawton

Bachelor of Fine Art, Monash Art, Design and Architecture by Tilda Njoo

Fine Art, RMIT by Anna Cunningham

Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts by Lige Qiao

Sculpture, National Art School by Bineeta Saha

Monash Architecture, Monash Art, Design and Architecture by Charlotte Schaller

Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts by Soomin Jeong

Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), UNSW Art & Design by Leighlyn Aguilar

Bachelor of Fine Art, Monash Art, Design and Architecture by Eadie Rule

Painting, Victorian College of the Arts by Alexandra Banning-Taylor

Photography, Victorian College of the Arts by Erin Barwood

Melbourne School of Design (Architecture), The University of Melbourne by Lachlan Hartnett

Drawing and Printmaking, Victorian College of the Arts by Stella Eaton

Bachelor of Fine Art, National Art School by Hannah Vlies Lawrence

Honours, Victorian College of the Arts by Danielle El-Hajj

Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), Monash Art, Design and Architecture by Giulia Lallo

Sculpture, Victorian College of the Arts by Amelia Scholes Gill

School of Architecture, RMIT University by Sage Ardona

Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), Monash Art, Design and Architecture by Belle Beasley

Honours, Monash Art, Design and Architecture by Wawe Ransfield

Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts by Levent Can Kaya

Bachelor of Fine Art, Master of Fine Art, UNSW Art & Design by Maeve Sullivan

Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), Monash Art, Design and Architecture by Victoria Mathison

Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), UNSW Art & Design by Miranda Collins

Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), UNSW Art & Design by Nic Narapiromkwan Foo

Honours, Victorian College of the Arts by Amélie Blanc

Sculpture, Bachelor of Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts by Mei Lin Meyers

Bachelor of Fine Art, National Art School by Sky Zhou

Fine Art, RMIT by Justine Walsh

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