Creative Responders

Latai Taumoepeau is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice fuses ancient and everyday temporal practice using mediums like performance, dance, installation and social engagement. 

Her faivā (body-centred practice) is grounded in the traditions of her homelands, the Island Kingdom of Tonga and her birthplace Sydney, land of the Gadigal people. 

Latai joins us to discuss her work over the past decade exploring the impact of climate change in the Pacific and the threat of dispossession that many island communities face.

Latai was a leading artist on Arts House Melbourne’s five-year project, Refuge, an exploration of community preparedness in emergency management. She shares her insights on that process and how her collaboration with the SES on that project has continued to evolve.

Latai was recently awarded Creative Australia’s 2023 Award for Emerging and Experimental Arts and reflects on the meaning of that acknowledgement and some of the questions contemporary artists face surrounding the relevance and sustainability of their work. 

Links

ABC Arts Week - Latai Taumoepeau: Creative Australia Award for Emerging and Experimental Arts 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKfKmtcergA 

Artist Profile / Repatriate at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13K2Gr-Od8w&t=9s 

Mass Movement, Refuge, Arts House Melbourne

https://www.artshouse.com.au/events/mass-movement/ 

Mass Movement, Documentary Short Film, Refuge 2021, Arts House 

https://www.artshouse.com.au/events/mass-movement-documentary-short-film/ 

The Last Resort: Biennale of Sydney

https://www.biennaleofsydney.art/participants/latai-taumoepeau/ 

Follow Latai on instagram

https://www.instagram.com/latai101/?hl=en 

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Kerry Jones is the Director of Systems Initiatives for the Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI). We spoke with Kerry in Meanjin / Brisbane, during the Australian Disaster Resilience Conference where she presented a program of work that is enabling communities to lead their own disaster response systems through a model of engagement called “Now-Future-How”.

This work, led by TACSI through the Fire to Flourish initiative, is built around the philosophy that when it comes to building resilient communities, the answers lie within the communities themselves. Kerry shares how the model is designed to deepen resilience capability to set communities up for success in approaching collective decision making and leading their own change.

Links:

Case study: Now Future How 

TACSI

Fire to Flourish

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When Cyclone Yasi hit the coast of North Queensland in 2011, the Girringun Aboriginal Corporation and its active community of rangers and artists took a position of leadership in the recovery process and galvanised a devastated community.

In this episode, Girringun’s Founder and Executive Officer Phil Rist shares the story of their Traditional-Owner led organisation; we take a tour around the renowned Girringun Arts Centre with manager Joann Russo; and we also hear from Girringun Ranger Michael George and Communications Officer Seraeah Wyles about the interconnectedness of arts, culture and country.

This episode is a re-release, originally aired in October 2019. We decided to share this episode this month in response to the outcome of the recent referendum as a way to continue using this platform to amplify Indigenous perspectives in disaster management.

The Creative Recovery Network expresses our solidarity with First Nations people and our ongoing staunch commitment to walk hand in hand to find new pathways for change. 

If you would like to support the work of the Girringun Aboriginal Corporation, you can donate here:

Some perspectives on the outcome of the referendum we have been reading / listening to:

Bhiamie Williamson in The Conversation

Claire G Coleman in The Saturday Paper

The Full Story: How to continue the fight for Indigenous rights

The movement that follows the Voice, Thomas Mayo

Other resources related to this episode:

Girringun Aboriginal Corporation

Girringun Resilience: Portraits of Yasi

Girringun Resilience (video), Creative Recovery Pilot Project

National Indigenous Arts & Cultural Authority 

Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction

UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Girringun: the trailblazing Indigenous corporation caring for 1.2m hectares of north Queensland

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Bhiamie Williamson is a Euahlayi man from North West NSW and one of Australia’s leading researchers into Indigenous peoples’ experience of disasters. 

Bhiamie’s work in this field has led to his current leadership of the National Indigenous Disaster Resilience Project which sits within Monash University’s Fire to Flourish program. We spoke with Bhiamie following the inaugural National Indigenous Disaster Resilience Summit in Meanjin, Brisbane - a first-of-its-kind event that marks a significant step forward in disaster planning in Australia. 

Instigated by Bhiamie’s work within Fire to Flourish and driven by his motivation to build a community of practice around Indigenous approaches to disaster management, the summit brought together hundreds of Indigenous and non-Indigenous disaster planning representatives to share perspectives and discuss how to collaborate effectively into the future. 

Bhiamie also discusses his recent work with Phoebe Quinn and Professor Lisa Gibbs around Indigenous healing methods, highlights the importance of working within decolonial research frameworks, and shares the potential that privileging Indigenous voices in disaster planning can offer into developing new modes of thinking around the climate crisis. 

Links >>

Fire to Flourish, Monash University

https://www.monash.edu/msdi/initiatives/fire-to-flourish

National Indigenous Disaster Resilience Summit Program

https://www.aidr.org.au/events/37022?locationId=37027

National Indigenous Radio Service, First Nations Knowledge Needed in Disaster Planning

https://nirs.org.au/news/indigenous-knowledge-needed-in-disaster-planning/

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Annette Carmichael is an award-winning choreographer and dance artist based in Western Australia with community engagement at the core of her work. She joins Scotia to discuss The Stars Descend, an ambitious and inspiring performance work that consists of five chapters, crafted with and for five different communities in the south-west of Western Australia in partnership with renowned eco-restoration project, Gondwana Link.

Driven by the desire to inspire climate hope and action, the performances were staged in outdoor settings across Gondwana Link’s 1000 kilometre ecological pathway, with each of the five communities presenting a chapter responding to the extraordinary biodiversity of the region.

The Stars Descend music appears in this episode courtesy of Annette Carmichael Projects: Sound design by Simon Walsh, Dave Mann, Andy O’Neil, Azariah Felton and Jean Michel Maujean, The Stars Descend, Annette Carmichael Projects, 2023. Track compiled and mastered by Azariah Felton.

LINKS

Gondwana Link

The Stars Descend at Heartland Journeys

Radio National interview with Malgana woman, Janine Oxenham, choreographer and star of The Stars Descend

The Stars Descend Highlights Video

‘Strong Like a Karri’. Behind the scenes video of The Stars Descend: Chapter Three, Porongurup.

The Stars Descend: Chapter 1 (Wooditjup Margaret River), Full Performance 

The Stars Descend: Chapter 2 (Northcliffe), Full Performance

The Stars Descend: Chapter 3 (Porongurup), Full Performance

Annette Carmichael Projects

Film: Breathing Life Into Boodja

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Dr Margaret Moreton is Executive Director of the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR) and leads the work of AIDR to develop and share knowledge and learning to support a disaster resilient Australia.

Margaret joins Scotia to talk about the work of AIDR and the importance of building a collaborative approach to how we plan for and respond to disasters. She shares the story of her first understanding of the importance of community and collaboration from her childhood growing up in rural Australia and how this has informed her life and work.

This, along with her experiences during the 2003 Canberra fires and the 2009 Victorian bushfires, motivated Margaret’s journey into community-based research into disaster recovery and resilience and what has now become an ongoing commitment to building capacity and improving resilience outcomes for Australian communities.

We also hear about the upcoming AIDR conference (August 23 - 24), the first to be delivered under Margaret’s leadership, and how this year’s program is enhancing the inclusion of diverse voices and new platforms including a dedicated focus on creative recovery for the first time.

Notes:

Australian Disaster Resilience Conference, 2023

AIDR Knowledge Hub

Climate Change and Social Capital: Professor Daniel Aldrich

Natural Hazards Research Australia

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Hard Place / Good Place is a project developed by the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum following a devastating storm that swept through the region in June 2021. It was thoughtfully designed in collaboration with the fEEL lab at the University of New South Wales as a way to work with young people in the region aged 15 to 25 to give voice to their experience as part of the recovery process.

The work focusses on lived experiences of being in a ‘hard place’ or a ‘good place’ through a collection of personal and community stories, told through Augmented Reality. It was exhibited in the museum in Lilydale from September - November as part of The Big Anxiety - a mental health and arts festival.

On this episode, Scotia is joined by two of the key people behind the project: Megan Sheehy, Director of the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum; and Volker Kuchelmeister, lead immersive designer and Senior Research fellow at the University of New South Wales’ Felt Experience and Empathy Lab.

We hear about the process of developing the work and the importance of centering the participants’ experience. We also discuss the broader opportunities for the future of digital storytelling as well as the crucial role that local government and local cultural institutions play in supporting communities through disaster recovery in regional areas.

LINKS

Hard Place / Good Place

https://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/enjoylocal/The-Big-Anxiety/Hard-PlaceGood-Place-Yarra-Ranges

The Age, October 5 2022: ‘The tree got every room in the house’: At the centre of a terrifying Dandenong Ranges storm

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-tree-got-every-room-in-the-house-at-the-centre-of-the-dandenong-ranges-terrifying-storm-20221005-p5bn9k.html

Yarra Ranges Regional Museum

https://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Experience/Yarra-Ranges-Regional-Museum

Parragirls Past, Present

http://kuchelmeister.net/portfolio/parragirls-past-present/

UNSW fEEL Lab

http://www.niea.unsw.edu.au/research/organisations/arc-laureate-felt-experience-empathy-lab-feel-lab

The Big Anxiety Festival

https://www.thebiganxiety.org/

Creative Recovery Network Case Study Library

https://creativerecovery.net.au/resources/

Creative Responders S1 E1, A Sense of safety: What young people are capable of in the face of disaster

https://creativerecovery.net.au/creative-responders-podcast/documentary-series/series-1/s1-episode-01/

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Vic McEwan is the Artistic Director and co-founder of TheCad Factory, an artist-led organisation whose work and practice aims to enrich broader conversations about the role the arts can play within our communities.

Vic is a leading practitioner in the field of socially engaged practice and joins us to discuss how this guides his work and The Cad Factory’s professional development and mentorship programs dedicated to exploring the ethics and expanding the community of practice around socially engaged work.

He shares some of The Cad Factory’s impactful projects around community preparedness in the regional communities of Falls Creek and Menindee, and discusses the leadership opportunities for arts organisations to navigate a changing world and facilitate nuanced explorations of complex community issues.

Links and resources:

The Cad Factory

https://www.cadfactory.com.au

From Menindee: Project description and short documentary

https://www.cadfactory.com.au/from-menindee

CASE Incubator

https://www.cadfactory.com.au/case-incubator

Socially Engaged Art Practice: A Responsibility Towards Care, Vic McEwan for Arts Hub

https://www.cadfactory.com.au/_files/ugd/a2d021_4548711a50084d29a60957f72f37ace9.pdf

The Clontarf Academy

https://clontarf.org.au/

Produced by Scotia Monkivitch and Jill Robson, edited and mixed by Tiffany Dimmack.

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Zena Armstrong joins us to share the story of community recovery following the Black Summer bushfires that devastated the village of Cobargo and the surrounding regions.

Zena is a former Australian diplomat and director of the Cobargo Folk Festival where she works with a close-knit team of volunteers using music, art and the spoken word to grow community connectedness and imagine new ways of being.

In the wake of the 2019-20 bushfires, Zena and the folk festival team joined forces with other key local organisations to harness the outpouring of support for their community forming the Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund, of which she is now President.

The fund has supported more than 40 projects and the story of its formation embodies the collective process and potential for community-led approaches to support recovery and ongoing preparedness in regional communities.

Further Reading:

Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund

Cobargo Folk Festival

"Don't dismiss our anger in Cobargo Scott Morrison, we are the ones living through a crisis", Guardian Article by Zena Armstrong and Peter Logue

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Dr Naomi Sunderland is a lead researcher on The Remedy Project - an Australian Research Council supported project exploring music as a primary cultural determinant of health for First Nations communities.

She joins us to discuss the healing power of music and her investigation into its role within First Nations communities as an enduring link to ancestors, Country, language and community.

Naomi is a descendant of the Wiradjuri First Nations People and is based out of Griffith University in Meanjin, Brisbane. Her extensive research and publishing record in arts-health and First Nations social justice has a particular focus on creative, anti-oppressive, and trauma-informed approaches.

Further reading:

The Remedy Project

https://remedyproject.org

Children’s Ground

https://childrensground.org.au

We Al-li Resources for trauma-informed care

https://www.wealli.com.au/resources/

Inner Deep Listening and Quiet Awareness, a Reflection by Miriam Rose Ungunmerr via the Miriam Rose Foundation

https://www.miriamrosefoundation.org.au/dadirri/

Listen to Kabi Kabi based Torres Strait Islander musician, Al Bartholomew’s, powerful acoustic tribute to Yothu Yindi’s Treaty. Al was one of the pilot study interviews for The Remedy Project and recorded this track on Kabi Kabi Country (Sunshine Coast, Queensland) with Chief Investigator, Phil Graham.

https://remedyproject.org/stories

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