Every Living Thing at MPavilion

MPavilion, the flagship initiative of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, has revealed the third instalment of Season 11, Every Living Thing. Running from 15 February to 6 March 2025, Tadao Ando’s MPavilion in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens will be transformed with an array of site-specific installations, performances, workshops, and discussions.

The series will delve into the relationships between humans, animals, plants, fungi, and microbes, offering fresh insights into ecological interconnections through art, science, and design. Audiences can look forward to a myriad of participatory experiences—from contemporary sound and dance works, to fermentation workshops, nature-led talks and interactive installations showcasing innovative habitats. Every event is free.

Series Highlights

MARS II by Reef Design Lab

MARS II lands in the pavilion pond—an installation built to bloom in the deep. Created by Alex Goad and the team at Reef Design Lab for reef restoration, habitat enhancement and coastal protection, the latest Modular Artificial Reef Structure will be installed in the MPavilion pond throughout the series. Alex’s work has been exhibited internationally and is part of permanent collections at MoMA, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Helsinki Design Museum. Once the series wraps, it will be plunged into Port Phillip Bay, where it will protect and nurture marine life.

The Cloud Maker

An award-winning five-piece band, The Cloud Maker reimagines folkloric tales of goddesses through sound and performance. Channelling ancient stories of fierce battles, shamanic dances, and journeys to the afterlife, they draw inspiration from the moth goddess who sings the most beautiful song of all time. Featuring musicians Te Kahureremoa Taumata, Sunny Kim, Aviva Endean, Maria Moles, and Freya Schack-Arnott, with visual designs by Kate Davis.

BLAKitecture

In the second BLAKitecture forum of Season 11, join Bradley Kerr (Windsor Kerr), Clarence Slockee (Gardening Australia), and Kaylie Salvatori (Country Oriented Landscape Architecture) for an interactive yarn exploring sensory engagement and design grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems.

All Things Listen

How might a bird or passer-by perceive sound? How about an insect? Join the debut sound performance by Golden Sands—a new electro-acoustic group featuring six female artists: Biddy Connor, Mads Davey, Madeleine Flynn, Sooji Kim, Prudence Rees-Lee, and Katerina Stathis, with sound engineer Alex Mras.

Untitled (Drip)

From the depths of the Birrarung, a creature stirs. Dancer Amber McCartney and designer Jaxon Stickler join forces in this new work about a river monster emerging from the Birrarung. This real-time choreographic experience features an improvisational score that feeds off audience and architectural energy.

Lost Rocks (2025): End of an Era

Lost Rocks is a slow publishing art project featuring 43 books by 46 contemporary artists, a decade-long exploration of rocks as a medium for storytelling. This session marks the culmination of the global project, with readings from contributors like Justy Phillips, Margaret Woodward, Lyndal Jones, and Julie Gough, followed by the distribution of fictiōnellas. Silent reading sessions will accompany the event, inviting visitors to surrender their phones and unwind in the pavilion.

Antopia: The Architecture of Ants

This roundtable will be led by Museums Victoria Research Institute expert entomologists Dr Ken Walker and Simon Hinkley, with Antopia exhibition producer Jillian Clark. Together they’ll discuss the secret life of ants and the art of science communication.

Microbial Dwellings

Get the chance to collect soil samples, make dilutions, and grow microbes on agar plates. Add your discoveries to the Danish Australian artists Rhoda Ting and Mikkel Bojesen’s sculptural installation and infuse the piece with collaborative life.

Materials for Coexistence

This guided experience opens your senses to regenerative design and the circular economy. Wander the pavilion and taste regenerative futures, touch the extended life of second-hand garments, smell the unique scent of 3D-printable biodegradable bioplastics, and see the poetic adaptability of zero-waste, modular furniture.

Agency UNTOLD

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, Country is the key to identity and spirituality. It is every living thing. In these yarns with Agency, a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led not-for-profit, local and visiting artists will explore the meaning of every living thing and its centrality to art practice for First Nations people.

Design Odyssey: We Need This Tech!

From artificial intelligence to climate tech, advanced technologies are reshaping our world at an astonishing pace. This panel will explore the tension between the benefits of innovation and the challenges they present.

Supported  by Bloomberg Philanthropies. 

MPavilion is a flagship initiative of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation. The Season 11 program is  made possible through the visionary support of its partners, principally the Victorian  Government through Creative Victoria and ANZ, Major Partner Bloomberg Philanthropies,  Education Partner RMIT, Major Supporters City of Melbourne, Arnold Bloch Leibler, Four  Pillars, Shadowfax, Industry partners AECOM, Gardner Group and KANE Construction and  our program partners and collaborators.  

View the full program here: mpavilion.org/every-living-thing