Research Symposium: All That is Alive

Program Schedule

Join us between Tuesday 16 September – Thursday 18 September for the following opening events and themed sessions:

Tuesday 16 September

Location: UTS Business School, (Building 8, Level 3), Ultimo NSW 2007

4:00pm | Welcome to Country & Keynote (Ionat Zurr, SymbioticA, University of Western Australia)

Location: UTS Gallery, Level 4, Peter Johnson Building (Building 6), 702 Harris St, Ultimo

6:00pm | All That is Alive Exhibition Opening (UTS Gallery, Building 6, Level 4)

Wednesday 17 September

Location: Peter Johnson Building, Level 4/702 Harris St, (Building 6, Level 4, Room 7)

9:30am–12:00pm — Session 1 | Subterranean Worlds: Life underfoot

Subterranean Worlds will explore underground networks, mycelial thinking, embodied labour, and the systems and knowledges that operate beneath the surface. 

• Pia Interlandi: "Afterlives of Bodies in Dress and Death"
• Keg de Souza: "Fungal Futures: Growth in the Shadows"
• Samuel Hodge: "Digging Up My Mother's Garden"
• Kumar Biswajit Debnath: "‘Living’ Fungal Materials: Mycelium-Based Composites for Climate-Resilient Architecture"
• Alia Parker: "Repairing repair: Patchworking with fungi"

1:30pm–4:00pm — Session 2 | Aquatic Ecologies: Being with water

Aquatic Ecologies will examine dynamic aquatic ecosystems as sites of ecological sustenance and adaptive innovation. Participants will share practices that collaborate with algal organisms,  promote intertidal regeneration, and support marine and freshwater habitat restoration.

• Clare Britton, Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor: "Gooliyari and walking with water"
• Jessie French: "Other Matter"
• Martina Doblin: "Reimagining Infrastructure for Resilient Coastal Futures"
• Carla Sbrocchi: "Entangled Wellbeing: Human-Marine Relationships in Urban Restoration Practice"

Location: UTS Gallery, Peter Johnson Building, Level 4

4:30pm–5:00pm | Artist talk and refreshments

• Kylie Banyard and Saskia van Pagee Anderson

Location: Zoom webinar

5.30pm–7.30pm AEST / 9.30am–11.30am CET — Session 3 | Alive across Site and Systems (online)

In addition to the four in-person sessions is a dedicated online program—Alive across Site and Systems—bringing together international contributors whose regenerative and place-based practices expand the conversation beyond geographic bounds. It offers a satellite space for planetary thinking and distributed, networked approaches to making and research.

• Sébastien Martinez-Barat, Benjamin Lafore, Florian Jomain (MBL Architects): "The Company of Things"
• Julia Lohmann: "Algae carry the ocean: Environmental Practices in the Department of Seaweed"
• Ana Compadre and Sandra Revuelta Albero (Atelier LUMA): "Bioregional Design Practices by Atelier LUMA"

Thursday 18 September

Location: Peter Johnson Building (Building 6, Level 4, Room 7), 702 Harris St, Ultimo

10:00am–12:30pm — Session 4 | Atmospheric Relations: Breathing together

Atmospheric Relations explores shared spaces of breath, scent, thermal interactions, and weather patterns. Speakers will consider invisible molecular and chemical processes made tangible through embodied and relational practices, examining and measuring atmospheric conditions such as air quality, energy, sonic fields and scented landscapes.

• Rafael Luna Zelaya: "Beyond Human Inclusivity: Designing Cities for Multi-Species Coexistence"
• Robyn Schofield: "The Atmosphere: A scientist’s view"
• Joyce Hinterding: "Floric Oscillations"
• Clare Cooper: "Futuring Histories of Atmospheric Relations"

Location: UTS Gallery, Peter Johnson Building, Level 4

12:45pm–1:15pm | Performance

• Ivey Wawn, Feeling in a Triangle

Location: Peter Johnson Building (Building 6, Level 4, Room 7), 702 Harris St, Ultimo

1:30pm–4:00pm — Session 5 | Terrestrial Assemblages: Growth, decay and regeneration

Terrestrial Assemblages explores Country, land and soil as sites of regeneration, microbial activity, fermentation, decomposition, material and cultural practice, and interspecies relationships.

• Madeleine Collie: "Following the plot"
• Bianca Hester: "Situating embodied entanglements within deep time terrains"
• Tully Arnot: "Teaching Sand to Think"
• Kate Dunn: "Terrestrial Assemblages: Earth as Home

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Session Themes