2025 Public Programs

Serwah Attafuah, Mostafa Azimitabar, Billy Bain, Gosha Heldtz, Jacquie Meng & Heath Nock
’You’re Welcome?’

Exhibition Launch
23 January, 6-8pm
Verge Gallery

Join Verge in celebrating the opening of You're Welcome?, featuring artists Serwah Attafuah, Moztafa Azimitabar, Billy Bain, Gosha Heldtz, Jacquie Meng, and Heath Nock.

Curated by Dharug artist Billy Bain, You’re Welcome? explores the ways in which a group of young Sydney-based artists form, express, and interrogate the contradictory ideas of what it means to be welcome in 'Australia’.  

Running concurrently with Invasion Day and The University of Sydney’s Welcome Week, You’re Welcome? celebrates and platforms these artist’s unique stories and perspectives — from the political to the surreal and humorous. 

The Path by Fei Gao: Performances & Welcome Back Party
Performances: 19 & 20 February, 12pm, 1:30 & 3pm
Welcome Back Party: 20 February, 6pm
Verge Gallery

Join Verge for The Path, a series of performances created by Fei Gao which bring to life the diverse migration journeys of five friends, taking place in the context of You’re Welcome? during the University of Sydney's Welcome Week.

On Thursday night, join us for the final performance of The Path, alongside a DJ set by soundtrack composer Sim Cheuanghane. Enjoy drinks at the bar, grab some free pizza and bring your friends along for this celebration of belonging and connection as we welcome our Verge community back for 2025.

Each of the five performers in The Path are adorned in striking armor, created during intimate interviews that informed each of the individual costume designs. These costumes, rendered in vivid hues of Blue, Green, Orange, Purple, and Black, weave personal and poetic stories of migration into their very fabric. Through collaborative workshops, the performers have crafted unique movements that echo their individual journeys. 

The Path comes together in a powerful moment where the five characters’ separate paths converge, symbolising a shared transformation. As they traverse the open field, they enact a compelling search for belonging and connection. This search resolves in a celebratory dance—a tribute to the bonds and communities that migrants forge to support one another in the face of adversity. This finale encapsulates a process of transformation, resilience, and symbolises the enduring human quest for connection. 

Watch The Path highlights here →

Performers:
Celine Cheung 
Fei Gao 
emoeba h♡rtbridge 
Atoc Malou 
Kit Wu-Bylett 

Costumes:
Kit Wu-Bylett 
Fei Gao 

Sound: 
Sim Cheuanghane

Artist Floor Talk with Mostafa Azimitabar
6 March, 11an-12:30PM
Verge Gallery

Kurdish refugee Mostafa 'Moz' Azimitabar is an artist and human rights activist who, after fleeing persecution from Iran to Australia, was held in detention on both Manus Island and in a Melbourne Hotel. In detention, Moz turned to painting as a way to escape the surrounding chaos. Without art supplies, Moz painted with a toothbrush― a practice that he continues to this day.

Join us at Verge to hear Moz speak about his story amidst a selection of his works, on display as part of You're Welcome?, an exhibition curated by Dharug artist Billy Bain.

You’re Welcome? explores the ways in which a group of young Sydney-based artists form, express, and interrogate the contradictory ideas of what it means to be welcome in 'Australia’.  

Running concurrently with Invasion Day and The University of Sydney’s Welcome Week, You’re Welcome? celebrates and platforms artist’s unique stories and perspectives — from the political to the surreal and humorous. 

Curatorial Floor Talk
27 March, 1-2pm
Verge Gallery

Join Verge for a floor talk led by Billy Bain, curator of You're Welcome?

Curated by Dharug artist Billy Bain, You’re Welcome? explores the ways in which a group of young Sydney-based artists form, express, and interrogate the contradictory ideas of what it means to be welcome in 'Australia’.  

Running concurrently with Invasion Day and The University of Sydney’s Welcome Week, You’re Welcome? celebrates and platforms these artist’s unique stories and perspectives — from the political to the surreal and humorous. 

Ellen Dahl & Poet Hannah Jenkins
’On Water and Time / a glacier leaves a deep cut’

Exhibition Launch
10 April, 6-8pm
Verge Gallery

Join Verge in celebrating the opening of On Water and Time / a glacier leaves a deep cut by Ellen Dahl and poet Hannah Jenkins.

On Water and Time / a glacier leaves a deep cut brings together new and established strands of Ellen Dahl’s artistic practice and her ongoing creative collaboration with poet Hannah Jenkins. 

Slow Looking Workshop
16 April, 1-2pm
Verge Gallery

Is semester heating up? Cool down at Verge, immersing yourself in the expansive photography of Ellen Dahl at our upcoming Slow Looking Workshop. Occurring amidst imagery of glacial Nordic landscapes, this workshop will involve a series of guided slow looking activities which will encourage you to closely observe and absorb the works in front of you. 

Subverting the art historical technique of closely examining the visual fundamentals of an artwork for academic output, this workshop engages with slow looking as an exercise in mindfulness. In a world that is increasingly fast-moving, slow looking is a means of learning about the world in a way that is free from judgement, and which brings us into the present moment.

In Conversation with Ellen Dahl
29 April, 1-2pm
Verge Gallery

On Water and Time / a glacier leaves a deep cut features large-scale photography, video, and sound by Ellen Dahl, as well as the digital poetry of Hannah Jenkins, to ‘translate’ the continually evolving nature and movements of glaciers to the audience of Verge Gallery. 

To hear Ellen speak about her practice and the experience of developing this exhibition in greater depth, join our In Conversation at Verge. Talking to Ellen amidst the world of On Water will be Estelle Yoon, an emerging artist and student from Sydney College of the Arts. 

Making Poetry Machines
6 May, 11am-1pm
Verge Gallery

Join us at Verge for Making Poetry Machines, a workshop led by poets and Crawlspace co-founders Hannah Jenkins and Rory Green. This workshop will explore hand-made, human-scale approaches to generative, computational poetry – as both a methodology for writing, and as an avenue for publishing  –  drawing on the poetry in the exhibition and on Crawlspace.

Echoes: On Water and Time…
1, 8 & 15 May, 12-12:30pm
Verge Gallery

Immerse yourself in the icy world of On Water and Time with Echoes, a new student sound series ​featuring emerging musicians and sound artists from The Conservatorium of Music and Sydney College of the Arts.

Considering the immense geological time scales embedded within Dahl and Jenkins' frozen landscapes, Echoes invites an opportunity for deep, expansive listening as we tune in to sonic works by Will Naufahu, Ruby Firmstone and others in response to On Water and Time.

Thursday 1 May - Gabriella Hill
Thursday 8 May - Will Naufahu
Thursday 16 May - Ruby Firmstone and Martin O’Flynn

Free, all welcome. 

Miška Mandić
’Residue’

Screening and Artist Q&A
29 May, 6-8pm
Verge Gallery

Screening begins 6:20pm
Artist Q&A begins 6:45pm

Join us for the premiere screening of Residue by Miška Mandić, followed by a Q&A between the artist and writer Ju Bavyka.

Free, all welcome. 
Drinks and food provided.

About Miška Mandić

Miška Mandić is an artist, filmmaker and educator born in SFR Yugoslavia, living on Gadigal and Wangal Land. Through a cinematic and photographic practice, her works explore the interrelated relationship between cinema, colonial-capitalism and a structuring of time. Miška’s works have been shown at Firstdraft, Composite Moving Image, Pari Ari, Airspace, Sydenham International, and her video installations The Fold (2022) and Residue (2024) have been finalists in the Fisher’s Ghost award at Campbelltown Art Center. Miška Is a lecturer in screen production at UNSW. 

About Ju Bavyka

Ju Bavyka is a writer, visual artist, and community organiser born in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, and currently living on Gadigal Land. They have a background in architecture and hold an MA in Visual Communication from the School of Art and Design in Kassel, Germany. Their work spans text, installation, drawing, and facilitation. Ju’s essays, poetry, and creative non-fiction exploring migration, queerness, labour, and structural exclusion have appeared in un Magazine, Runway Conversations, Liminal, and InterAlia. They are the 2025 recipient of the Peter Blazey Fellowship and are currently working on their first book manuscript.

Sidney McMahon
’Sixty-nine’

Exhibition Launch
26 June, 6-8pm
Verge Gallery

Join Verge in celebrating the launch of Sixty-nine by Sidney McMahon.

Sixty-nine is an immersive sculptural exploration of the symbolic and emotional terrain of the number 69 as a cycle of life, death, queerness, and intimacy. Anchored in the architecture of the home, the work navigates domestic spaces as sites of eroticism, grief and repetition.

Sixty-nine evokes the five stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - as nonlinear, looping states.

Tender, raw, and unsettling, it considers how care and rupture coexist, how desire and mourning blur, and how queer intimacy reclaims space within familiar cycles of loss, pleasure, and transformation.

Food and drink provided at the launch. All welcome.

Learn more about the exhibition and related public programs here.

Echoes: Sixty-nine
7 & 14 August, 12:30-1pm
Verge Gallery

Step into the immersive domestic architecture of Sixty-nine by artist Sidney McMahon with Echoes, Verge's student sound series ​featuring emerging musicians and sound artists from The Conservatorium of Music and Sydney College of the Arts.

Sixty-nine explores the symbolic and emotional terrain of the number 69 as a cycle of life, death, queerness, and intimacy. Join us for an experience in expansive listening as we tune in to sonic works improvised and created in response to these themes of eroticism, grief and repetition in McMahon's Sixty-nine.

Thursday 7 August - Jae Ryder & Elle Rodriguez
Thursday 14 August - The Doomslut Collective

Free, all welcome. 

In Conversation with Sidney McMahon
14 August, 6-7:30pm
Verge Gallery

The sculptural forms within Sidney McMahon's exhibition Sixty-nine speak to the architecture of the home, engaging with domestic spaces as a means to consider how care and rupture coexist, how desire and mourning blur, and how queer intimacy reclaims space within familiar cycles of loss, pleasure, and transformation.

To delve deeper into these ideas, join our In Conversation at Verge, at which Sidney will chat to emerging artist and Sydney College of the Arts student Connor Chen about Sixty-nine within the exhibition space.

Free food and drink provided. All welcome.

Slow Looking Workshop
Friday 15 August, 1-2pm
Verge Gallery

Sixty-nine by Sidney McMahon transforms Verge into a sculptural landscape which echoes the architecture of the home, and is centred on symbolic and emotional associations with the number 69. Immerse yourself in this terrain at our upcoming Slow Looking Workshop. This workshop will involve a series of guided slow looking activities which will encourage you to closely observe and absorb the works in front of you.

Subverting the art historical technique of closely examining the visual fundamentals of an artwork for academic output, this workshop engages with slow looking as an exercise in mindfulness. In a world that is increasingly fast-moving, slow looking is a means of learning about the world in a way that is free from judgement, and which brings us into the present moment.

Free food and drink provided. All welcome.

’USU Creative Awards 2025’

All free, all welcome
Presented as part of USU Creative Month

Spoken Word Night
4 September, 5:30-7pm
Verge Gallery

From narrative non-fiction to lyrical poetry, Spoken Word Night is an opportunity to engage with material written and performed by Sydney’s next generation of writers.

Hear from students shortlisted for the Word category of the 2025 USU Creative Awards, as they read out excerpts of their pieces of writing at Verge.

Live Music
5 September, 5:30-7:30pm
Hermann’s Bar

End your week on a high note at our Live Music Night!

From R&B to hyperpop and more, tune in to live performances from emerging Sydney musicians who have been selected as finalists in the 2025 USU Creative Awards Music category.

A limited bar tab will be available, so bring your friends and family and get in quick to enjoy this night of tunes and fun!

Short Film Screening
12 September, 5:30-7pm
Backspace Gallery, Level 3 Wentworth Building

Immerse yourself in a series of short films created by Sydney’s emerging filmmakers at our Short Film Screening.

Sit back, grab some popcorn, and transport yourself into the filmic worlds created by the finalists on the ‘big screen', taking place this year at Backspace Gallery on Level 3 of the Wentworth building.

Afterwards, head down to Verge Gallery to enjoy the Creative Month Block Party, presented by Verge, PULP, and SCASS! Learn more & RSVP here.

Artist Talks
Saturday 13 September, 11am-2pm
Verge Gallery

Bring along your friends and family for a Saturday afternoon of art and refreshments!

Hear from finalists of the Art category of the USU Creative Awards as they speak about the concepts and processes which have informed their practices and led them to create the works featured within this year’s exhibition at Verge.

Creative Awards Night
Thursday 18 September, 5:30-7:30pm
Verge Gallery

Verge warmly invites you to the 2025 USU Creative Awards Night, to celebrate the finalists across the categories of Art, Music, Short Film and Word as our esteemed panel of judges announce the winners from each category.

Platforming the voices of USyd’s emerging creatives, the 2025 USU Creative Awards showcases works engaged with a vast range of themes, including queer identity, representations of femininity, grief and catharsis, the quotidian, and memory.

5:30pm - Doors open
6:00pm - Formalities begin

Chris Dolman
‘This won’t last’

Exhibition Launch
2 October, 6-8pm
Verge Gallery

Join Verge in celebrating the launch of This won’t last by Chris Dolman.

This won’t last is an installation that takes on ideas of the contemporary ruin to explore impermanence, disembodiment, failure, and decay.  

Can a ruin ever be complete, or is its essence always in the process of becoming? Do ideas shape the world more through their clarity or their ambiguity? Is a ruin a mask, or a memory unravelling?

Through hand building and sandcasting, layered monoprints and soundscapes, disguised office furniture, field recordings, and videos on phones, the work draws on fragments of personal history, speaks to the artist studio as a site of ruin, and speculates on a collective dystopic future that is quickly closing in. 

Food and drink provided at the launch. All welcome.

Learn more about the exhibition and related public programs here.

Echoes (Twilight)
23 October, 5:30-7:30pm
Verge Gallery

Cross into the 'ruin' of This won't last by Chris Dolman with Echoes (Twilight), an extension of Verge's iterative student sound series. In this instance of Echoes, Chris Dolman will be joined by a lineup of performers to create a shifting sonic landscape within the exhibition space.

Through hand building and sandcasting, layered monoprints and soundscapes, disguised office furniture, field recordings, and videos on phones, This won't last draws on fragments of personal history, speaks to the artist studio as a site of ruin, and speculates on a collective dystopic future that is quickly closing in.

Featuring performances by Will Naufahu, m.h. and Gogol.

Food and drink provided at the launch. All welcome.

Learn more about the exhibition and related public programs here.

About the performers

Gogol
Gogol is the dark ambient and black metal leaning solo project from Chris Dolman.
A vehicle for morbid thoughts and misanthropic misadventure.
100% anitfascist and anti AI.

m.h.
m.h. is the solo project of Moss Hopkins, a sound artist and musician living on Wangal land. Working from an iterative, cut-up text score, live performances involve the use of lyres, tape, feedback, objects and obscured vocalisations. What results is a sparse and spectral thing; an occult transmission that resembles music but feels somewhere else.

Will Naufahu
Will Naufahu is an artist based in Sydney, Australia. Through performance, he uses aesthetics of feedback noise and drones with referential found-sound, recontextualising otherwise abrasive and violent sonic elements to stage expressions of intense emotion and drama.

In Conversation with Chris Dolman
30 October, 12-1pm
Verge Gallery

Chris Dolman describes his exhibition This won't last as a response to questions that he has pondered lately;

Can a ruin ever be complete, or is its essence always in the process of becoming? Do ideas shape the world more through their clarity or their ambiguity? Is a ruin a mask, or a memory unravelling?

To hear Dolman ponder these questions further in-person, come along to our In Conversation, at which Chris will chat to Sydney College of the Arts student, Lily Tsuruko Tucker, about This won't last within the exhibition space.

Food and drink provided. Free, all welcome.

About the speakers

Chris Dolman
Chris Dolman is a cross disciplinary artist and teacher living and working on Gadigal land. Using traditional techniques with ad-hoc methodologies, Dolman explores contradictions within himself and the world around him, examining existential themes of loss and impermanence, expectation and failure. Dolman has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2019 Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Artists Traveling Scholarship. He has undertaken recidencies, including at Bundanon Trust and Artspace Sydney, and, internationally, at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris and Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium.

Lily Tsuruko Tucker
Lily Tsuruko Tucker (b. 2004) is an artist living and working on Gadigal land. As a third-year student at SCA, their practice draws upon the themes of spectatorship, personal superstitions, and commitment, translating the particular images from their mind into sculptural form. Their devotion to the labour of carving premises the affective relationships built between Tucker and their works, cradling each piece fondly with great hesitance to let them live alone. Experimenting in wood, rosin, and metal, Tucker uses their suite of enigmas to mediate intimate dialogues between the microscopic and the universal. 

Eddie Abd
‘folded in’

Exhibition Launch
20 November, 6-8pm
Verge Gallery

Join Verge in celebrating the launch of folded in by Eddie Abd, featuring a live performance by Ludwig El Haddad (vocals) and Fady Kassab (percussion).

folded in by artist Eddie Abd is an exploration of complicity through camouflage and collage, marking a moment of heightened awareness of our individual and collective entanglements with systems that are scaffolded by historical and present injustices.

“Drawn from a speech by Indian scholar Gayatri Spivak, the expression ‘folded in’ became an entry point into self-reflection beyond the notion of guilt. The works in this exhibition are borne out of personal reckonings within myself and family, and have been shaped by my ongoing conversations with colleagues, most notably Dharug artist and educator Leanne Tobin.

folded in starts a process of acknowledgment and conversation framed by personal history, the politics of the day and diasporic art making within the colony.” - Eddie Abd

Food and drink provided at the launch. All welcome.

Learn more about the exhibition and related public programs here.