Every community has a living memory of itself, an awareness of a collective identity woven of a thousand individual stories. From the ruins of post-World War II Italy, a generation of migrants sought new beginnings in Australia, carrying with them the weight of history, the resilience of survival, and the hope of transformation. The exhibition Memories That Make Us: The Past We Carry, The Stories We Become illuminates these journeys, not merely as acts of relocation but as profound negotiations of identity, belonging, and cultural inheritance. Through the prism of memory, this exhibition traces the fluid and often unresolved nature of migration, capturing the entanglement of past and present, home and exile, nostalgia and adaptation.

At the heart of this exhibition lies the idea that migration is never a singular or linear experience. Instead, it is a complex, layered process, simultaneously shaped by personal reminiscence and collective histories.

The exhibition emerges from a long-term research project conducted in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. It is led by Associate Professor Toija Cinque, Associate Professor Martin Potter and Professor Sean Redmond in association with the Critical Digital Infrastructures and Interfaces (CDII) research group. This exhibition was also developed with the support of CO.AS.IT. Italian Assistance Association, in collaboration with senior researcher and Il Globo journalist Riccardo Schirru and multicultural communications expert Fotis Kapetopoulos.

Memories that Make Us runs from 27 October 2025 to 1 March 2026, 8am–9pm daily.

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