Material Storytelling: The Politics and Pedagogy of Everyday Materials

Material Storytelling: The Politics and Pedagogy of Everyday Materials

  • 22 Apr 2026
  • 02:00pm - 03:00pm
  • FREE
  • Online, Melbourne
  • First Site Gallery
| Storey Hall Basement, 344 Swanston Street, Melbourne
event header image

This artist talk examines how material practice challenges western knowledge systems, foregrounding embodied, intergenerational ways of knowing through everyday materials, storytelling and acts of dyeing, stitching and wrapping.

Mita Chowdhury's talk will explore Material Storytelling as a practice that engages the politics and pedagogy of everyday materials. Drawing on her exhibition Inheritance, she reflects on working with turmeric, Khadi, reclaimed sari and found gum tree branches as carriers of intergenerational knowledge, memory and lived experience. Within this practice-led framework, materials are not passive mediums but active sites of knowledge production.

The work directly challenges western hegemonic systems of knowledge validation and the cultural erasures they sustain, asserting instead that knowledge is already embodied, intergenerational and situated. Through processes of dyeing, stitching and wrapping, Chowdhury mobilises material practice as a method of accessing and enacting this knowledge—refusing the authority of so-called scientific validation—while articulating the complex conditions of displacement, migration and in-betweenness.

This is a free event, no registration required.

Mita Chowdhury stitching artwork for Inheritance, 2026. Photo by Azan Hossain.

This event and exhibition is presented by RMIT University at First Site Gallery.

Related events

Share

eoi-ref.jpg

Now accepting 2027 First Site Gallery project proposals

Student
Icon / Small / CalendarCreated with Sketch. 28 Sep 2026 - 01 Nov 2026

Are you an RMIT student with a creative project you’d like to share? We are calling for proposals from RMIT students, who are currently enrolled in the College of Design and Social Context, to exhibit in the 2027 First Site Gallery exhibition program.

ec-ref.jpg

'The Voice of the Maribyrnong' by Elijah Cristiano

Icon / Small / CalendarCreated with Sketch. 06 Oct 2026 - 30 Oct 2026

Elijah Cristiano combines underwater footage, archival images and sound to examine the Maribyrnong River’s colonial and industrial histories – and the ways photography has framed the river.

minh-an-ref.jpg

'Vườn lan (Orchid Garden)' by Minh-An Pham

Icon / Small / CalendarCreated with Sketch. 06 Oct 2026 - 30 Oct 2026

Rooted in his mother’s favourite flower, 'Vườn lan (Orchid Garden)' revisits Minh-An Pham’s parents’ wedding photographs as a means of reflecting on their relationship, his own experiences, and memory and longing more broadly.

Load more
aboriginal flag float-starttorres strait flag float-start

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

Learn more about our commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples