Creative Writing on Creative Antarctica

01 May 2026
02:00pm - 03:00pm
FREE
RMIT Gallery | 344 Swanston St, Melbourne, VIC 3000

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“You stand there so nice in your blizzard of ice, oh please let me come into the storm” – Leonard Cohen, 'One of Us Cannot Be Wrong', 1966

Antarctica is a place of intrigue—a remote, unknown, isolated and unforgiving continent that inspires creativity. An immense expanse of white stretching relentlessly to the horizon, void of permanent human settlement—it provides a tabula rasa primed for tales of wilderness and adventure, as well as stories of survival and human endurance pushed beyond limits. It is also a place where the climate crisis is starkly visible, and the future is envisioned as bleak and unliveable.

Antarctica offers the perfect setting for a compelling creative narrative. A landscape of extremes, it is shrouded in perpetual darkness in winter and bathed in continuous light throughout summer. Its pristine white, thick packed-ice impenetrable and yet extremely fragile; under threat, on the verge of dissolving.

In partnership with the School of Media and Communication and the non/fictionLab, writers Melody Ellis, Eloise Grills, Alice King, Gareth Morgan and Dior Angel Sutherland were invited to respond to Creative Antarctica: Australian Artists and Writers in the Far South. Please join us on Friday 1 May at 2pm in the ‘Ice Salon’ reading room when they will read excerpts from their creative writing exhibition responses.

This event is presented by RMIT Galleries for RMIT University, as part of the exhibition Creative Antarctica: Australian Artists and Writers in the Far South.

Image credit: Installation view of the ‘Ice Salon’ reading room, featuring 'Antarctica in Fiction' by Elizabeth Leane as part of Creative Antarctica: Australian Artists and Writers in the Far South, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, 2026. Photo courtesy of RMIT Galleries.

Writers

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Melody Ellis is a writer and Senior Lecturer based in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. Her work has appeared in numerous literary and scholarly publications, including Cordite Poetry Review, Meanjin, AXON, Mekong Review and TEXT.

Eloise Grills is a writer and artist interested in hybrid forms. Her illustrated memoir, big beautiful female theory, was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, and her poetry collection, If you're sexy and you know it slap your hams, was shortlisted for the Mary Gilmore award. She is currently working on her first novel.

Alice King is a creative non-fiction writer currently undertaking a PhD. Their writing is concerned with the relationships between humans and the environment. Their work can be found in Arena Online.

Gareth Morgan is the author of When A Punk Becomes A Spunk and Dear Eileen, and co-director of Sick Leave.

Dior Angel Sutherland is a writer living in Naarm/Melbourne. Their practice imagines potential queer futures and includes fiction, poetry, essays and reviews.

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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 Indigenous cultures

Creative Writing on Creative Antarctica