MPAC commissions announce new recipients for 2027 – Tom Ballard, Aviva Endean, Fast Fashun
by Kris Weber | Jul 16, 2026
Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC) has announced the recipients of its 2027 commissioning program, supporting three ambitious new projects that bring artists and researchers together to explore some of the most pressing questions of our time.
Through the David Li Sound Gallery Commission and MPAC Creative Development program, artists are given the opportunity to develop new work in collaboration with Monash experts, drawing on research, facilities and interdisciplinary partnerships to transform ideas into performance.
Through access to Monash expertise, world‑class facilities and curatorial support, MPAC transforms ambitious ideas into public-facing works, across artforms, that push the boundaries of contemporary performance.
The 2027 recipients are sound artist and composer Aviva Endean, writer and performer Tom Ballard, and fashion waste creatives Fast Fashun, whose projects span climate science, heliophysics and philosophy, the psychologies of youth culture and sustainability, and social participation.
Aviva Endean: exploring climate through sound
Drawing inspiration from the invisible atmospheric phenomenon of clear air turbulence, Aviva Endean will transform the David Li Sound Gallery into an immersive instrument, creating a performance arwork that connects breath, weather systems and climate research using the venue’s world-leading Meyer Constellation Active Acoustic Sound technology.
Clear Air Turbulence is a new 50-minute electro-acoustic work for winds, electronics and the venue’s immersive spatial audio system. Inspired by the atmospheric phenomenon of invisible turbulence and its increasing prevalence in a changing climate, the work will explore the relationship between breath, wind and sound in motion.
The Melbourne/Naarm-based clarinettist, composer and sound artist is renowned for creating immersive listening experiences that explore sound, space and human connection.
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Fast Fashun: Reimagining youth culture through participation
Fast Fashun will develop DEAD FASHUN SOCIETY, an interactive installation and participatory performance exploring youth identity, belonging, conformity and climate anxiety through fashion waste and collective play. Designed primarily for teenagers and young adults, the project transforms reclaimed clothing into a participatory environment where audiences experiment with self-expression, collaboration and public participation.
Transforming fashion waste through large-scale collective play and social experimentation, Fast Fashun’s DEAD FASHUN SOCIETY will collaborate with Monash experts in psychology and sociology to investigate how young people navigate identity, non-conformity and belonging, in creative process where participants are encouraged to create and wear unexpected looks with reclaimed clothing, collaborate with strangers, survive social discomfort and experiment with identity in public.
Tom Ballard: finding meaning at the end of the world
Tom Ballard takes a deep dive into heliophysics and current theories about the sun’s fate in this new work The Sun Is Going To Explode. Combining comedy, storytelling, science, philosophy and theatrical spectacle, this ambitious theatre work asks one of humanity’s oldest questions: if everything will eventually disappear, how should we live now?
Ballard explores how humans find meaning in the face of cosmic impermanence, through comedy, storytelling, science, philosophy and theatrical spectacle. In collaboration with Monash researchers in heliophysics and philosophy, Ballard will create a bold, life-affirming performance that transforms complex ideas about the universe into a deeply personal and collective theatrical experience. The project will draw on expertise from the School of Physics and Astronomy and philosophical scholarship to create a performance that is both intellectually rigorous and emotionally resonant.
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