Bodies of water: Learning program

Bodies & boundaries

Kicking off the program's first dedicated session, Dr Astrid Lorange will reflect on recent writing, while Dr Ali Chalmers Braithwaite will introduce their project The Body Traces Archive: Designing Slimy VR for Queer Embodiment. This participatory conversation will encourage attendees to examine methods for subverting dominant visual and descriptive modes of representing bodies in virtual space.

The in-gallery exchange will be followed by a body trace drawing VR workshop facilitated by the speakers.

Date: Wednesday, 22 July, 12.30pm–2pm

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River kin

What can a river teach us when we trace the entangled relationships that constitute its intelligence—between water, sediment, species, and seasons? And how might sitting with that complexity open up ways of thinking, making and caring for, that take seriously the more-than-human?

Join Indigenous Water Science researcher Bradley Moggridge and artist, curator and researcher Kirsten Wehner for a panel discussion on the provocations prompted by waterways, facilitated by Zoë Sadokierski, Bodies of water program academic lead and designer, writer, creative producer and educator.

The discussion will be followed by a collage session addressed to bodies of water.

A separate screening of the short documentary More than a Fish Kill (2024), co-produced by the National Museum of Australia, the Cad Factory and Otis Filley Studios, follows the session.

Date: Thursday, 6 August, 12–1.30pm

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More than a Fish Kill film screening

More than a Fish Kill is an inspiring short-form documentary exploring how artists, fisheries managers and First Nations custodians came together in the aftermath of devastating fish kills along the Barka (Darling River) in far western New South Wales. These unlikely collaborators undertook a remarkable journey, turning these devastating ecological disasters into catalysts for cultural healing and revival.

Join UTS Gallery & Art Collection for a free screening at UTS' state-of-the-art 'Rizzo' screening theatre.

Co-produced by the National Museum of Australia, the Cad Factory and Otis Filley Studios.

Date: Thursday, 6 August, 2pm - 2:30pm

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Writing bodies & places

In this session, a cohort of UTS creative practitioners including acclaimed author Delia Falconer, poet and writer Dave Drayton, interdisciplinary storyteller and researcher Holly O'Neil, and writer, designer and landscape researcher Georgina Reid, will perform live readings of recent creative nonfiction writing to spark a critical look at the language we use to describe complex and entangled systems.

The readings will be followed by a creative writing exercise and impromptu readings.

Date:  Thursday, 13 August, 5–6pm

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