Seeing voices uses the Monash University Collection as a springboard for thinking through the voice and how it is visualised, employed and reimagined in contemporary art.

In the exhibition, the voice might act as a metaphor for collective action, for speaking out against injustice and coming together in gestures of solidarity. It can be a marker of cultural and geographic specificity or the trace of disappearing language. It may also function like a spiritual medium; through its historical recording and archiving it time-travels to haunt the present. The voice is also an index, a measure of positon, perspective, distance and emotion. In private, in public, in conversation, on record – the voice connects our experiences with those of others.

In addition to artworks selected from the Monash University Collection, Seeing voices features loans from Australian and international artists. The exhibition encompasses drawing, painting, photography, sculpture and video.

To bring the immediacy of the live voice into the exhibition space, it will also include a presentation at each venue from one of five artists: Erik Bünger, Sean Dockray, Hannah Donnelly, Rosie Isaacs and Wrong Solo (Agatha Gothe-Snape and Brian Fuata).

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring a curatorial introduction and two commissioned texts by Norie Neumark and Simone Schmidt.

A NETS Victoria and Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA touring exhibition

Learning Guides

• Seeing voices - Learning Resource

Venues