'The Voice of the Maribyrnong' by Elijah Cristiano

06 Oct 2026 - 30 Oct 2026
11:00am - 05:00pm
FREE
First Site Gallery | Storey Hall Basement, 344 Swanston Street, Melbourne

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.

The Maribyrnong River and its tributaries flow through the Country of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bununerong Peoples of the Kulin Nation. Since European colonisation, the river has been used as a transport route and a drain for industrial waste, while its surrounding landscape has supplied materials for colonial expansion. Bluestone extracted from nearby quarries was used to construct buildings including gunpowder magazines, connecting the river and surrounding landscape to a broader history of colonial violence.

Early photographs often presented the Maribyrnong as either an idyllic pastoral scene or a resource for industrial growth. The Voice of the Maribyrnong is a single-channel video work that challenges these representations, placing archival perspectives in dialogue with Cristiano’s own images. His contemporary footage, filmed above and below the water and guided by the river’s movement, explores how an artist might collaborate with a waterway rather than simply represent it.

This project recognises the river not as scenery or a resource, but as a living presence shaped by – and continuing beyond – the histories imposed upon it.

Banner image: Elijah Cristiano, The Voice of the Maribyrnong (still), 2025, single-channel video. Image courtesy of the artist.

Elijah Cristiano is a multidisciplinary artist living and creating on Wurundjeri Country in Narrm/Melbourne. Working across photography, video and sound, his site-responsive practice explores place, positionality and ecology. Elijah graduated from a Master of Photography at RMIT University in 2025 and was awarded the NAVA Ignition Award for Highest Performing in Professional Practice, the Brunswick Print Lab Prize, and the Vice-Chancellor’s List for Academic Excellence Award. He recently completed the RMIT Galleries Graduate Residency and is currently an Artist in Residence at Soundstep Studios in Hobsons Bay. Elijah has exhibited works both locally and internationally.

Opening hours

11am - 5pm Tuesday to Friday

Closed on public holidays

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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 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

'The Voice of the Maribyrnong' by Elijah Cristiano