Micro Talk :: ANAT Programs 2025

Join ANAT for a short, lunchtime conversation to explore the nature and nuances of multidisciplinary collaboration featuring the artists, researchers and partners of ANAT programs in 2025.

WHO

Host: Melissa DeLaney, ANAT CEO

ANAT Synapse Residency 2025:

James Nguyen, Artist
Dr John Gould, School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle

ANAT Bespoke :: Re-cultivate:

ANAT + South East Water + FB IDEAs, Melbourne

Yandell Walton, Artist
Kate Spencer, General Manager, Fishermans Bend Innovation Diversity Experimentation and Activation Ltd (FB Ideas)

WHEN

Wednesday 3 December:

Adelaide 12.15pm - 1.00pm
Brisbane 11.45am - 12.30pm
Canberra 12.45pm - 1.30pm
Darwin 11.15am - 12pm
Hobart 12.45pm - 1.30pm
Melbourne 12.45pm - 1.30pm
Perth 9.45am - 10.30am
Sydney 12.45pm - 1.30pm

WHERE

Join us online. A link will be provided to registrants prior to the start time.

OVERVIEW

ANAT Synapse and Bespoke programs involve Australian organisations hosting and/or collaborating with artists, leading to profound artistic and professional development for the participants, while also building a sustainable support base for interdisciplinary artistic collaboration in Australia.

The programs bring artists and researchers together in partnerships that generate new knowledge, ideas, and processes that are beneficial beyond both fields. A distinguishing feature of the projects is their artistic research focus, with applicants supported in collaborative experimentation.

ANAT Synapse Residency 2025

Two decades of art + science innovation

Diasporic Amphibians, is a collaborative residency project exploring the biological, social, and evolutionary impact of frog communities that have become geographically separated and isolated. The consequences of habitat disturbance and disease burden may be reshaping how frog communities might be undergoing distinct ecological pressures and even biological differentiations that could be conceptualised as a diasporic experience.

James Nguyen was born in Bảo Lộc, Việt Nam. He is currently based in Murrumbeena (close to where the Boyds once ran their pottery studios). Nguyen’s work engages with reMatriation, decolonial thinking and language-brokering. He makes memes, performances, film, sculpture and installations that draw attention to the diasporic absurd.

James has shown both ground-breaking and lacklustre work at institutions including ACCA, MCA, NGV, Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, 4A, and Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art.

Image: James Nguyen, photograph Nguyen Thi Kim Nhung.

Dr. John Gould is a conservation and animal behaviour scientist at the University of Newcastle. Currently, John’s research focus is on the conservation of the threatened green and golden bell frog, Litoria aurea, including ways to manage key threatening process such as habitat modification and invasive species.

The ANAT Synapse residency program is supported by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) and the University of Newcastle (UoN).

Image: Dr John Gould, photograph Alex Parkes.

ANAT Bespoke :: Re-cultivate

Re-cultivate is a three-month creative partnership between artist Yandell Walton, South East Water and FB IDEAS, Melbourne. This immersive residency reimagines our relationship with water through artistic inquiry and creative innovation, encouraging new ways of thinking about water systems, sustainability, and the future of urban environments.

ANAT Bespoke :: Re-cultivate is a creative partnership between the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), South East Water and FB IDEAS with artist Yandell Walton.

Yandell Walton

Yandell Walton is a multi-award-winning artist based on Wurundjeri Country in Melbourne. Her practice spans embodied moving image works presented through immersive and interactive installations that blur the boundaries between the real and the virtual. Walton’s work investigates ideas of impermanence and transformation in relation to environmental change and human impact.

Her recent projects explore the intersections of performance and visual art, developing innovative workflows that merge human movement with digital representations of plant life. This research evolved through her role as the inaugural Phillip Hunter Fellow and participation in ANAT’s IDEATE program. Currently undertaking a PhD in Fine Art at the University of Melbourne, Walton’s research examines cross-species embodiment and distributed agency within computational media art.

Image: Yandell Walton, photo courtesy the artist.

Kate Spencer

Kate Spencer is the General Manager of FB IDEAs, a not-for-profit organisation established to support incremental urban renewal and seed an collaborative innovation culture in Fishermans Bend. Kate is also a designer and creative producer, with 25 years’ experience shaping and overseeing the strategic and creative direction and delivery of award-winning cultural and placemaking projects. She has worked across the cultural, heritage, creative, tourism, built environment, education and innovation sectors to build collaborative partnerships and bring experiences, places and new ideas to life.

Image: Kate Spencer, photograph Little Viking Productions.

Host: Melissa DeLaney

A vital focus of the work and practice of her work as the Chief Executive Officer of ANAT, is interdisciplinary partnerships and collaboration. Melissa continues building an international network, mostly interested in participatory forms - this includes residencies, programs and events, strategy, and facilitating spaces for others to connect and be creative, active and social.

Image: Melissa DeLaney, photograph courtesy of ANAT.

Accessibility

This Zoom event will include auto-generated live captioning. We encourage you to advise ANAT of any further accessibility requirements when registering for your ticket. ANAT will endeavour to do all we can to make the event accessible for you.

Micro Talk will be recorded and the live transcription saved. It will be posted on the ANAT website at a later date.

Ticket pricing

This is a free event. Please consider a donation.

About ANAT

The Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) is a national network that creates opportunities for experimental artists to collaborate with science and technology partners. We do this because we believe artists are essential to how we imagine and shape our future.

ANAT and our project partners acknowledge and pay respects to the First Nations of the land known as Australia. We recognise all Traditional Owners and their continued cultural, spiritual and technological practices. ANAT works on Kaurna yarta and widely across many Countries.

ANAT is assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia and the South Australian government through the Department of Premier and Cabinet, CreateSA.