Art, Fire and Flood: A Symposium on Extreme Weather and the Creative Arts

Art, Fire and Flood: A Symposium on Extreme Weather and the Creative Arts brings together artists, academics and cultural sector workers to engender a series of conversations about what role the arts might play in building resilience in and with Western Australian communities in the face of increasingly complex extreme weather events. The Symposium will take place in the historic Hackett Hall in the WA Museum Boola Bardip.

The morning session runs from 9.30am - 12pm and includes two panel discussions which are open to the public (details below). We warmly encourage people to join us and participate in this important dialogue. Please register your attendance by selecting a free ticket through the Humanitix event page.

We look forward to sharing this creative space with you.

Each panel will be 40 mins with 20 mins for questions from the floor.

Panel 1: 9.30-10.30

Burnscar: Negotiating Changing Environments Through Art Practice.

Panel Chair: Jo Pollitt (ECU). Panel speakers: Cass Lynch (Curtin), Joshua Zeunert (UNSW), Joshua Kalmund (WA Museum).

Each panellist will be engaged in discussion about their practice, philosophy and approach to working in and with a changing climate. They will consider issues of scale, time and perspective in relation to the work they produce as well as cultural events and experiences that have shaped and informed their ideas and approaches to their artwork. 

Panel 2: 11.00-12.00 

Creativity and Resilience: Rendering or Responding to the Unimaginable.

Panel Chair: Helena Grehan (ECU). Panel speakers: Clint Bracknell (UWA), Renée Newman (ECU), Josephine Wilson (MU). 

Each panellist will be engaged in discussion about how their work intersects with extreme weather events including ideas around the ‘responsibility’ of the artist, the ethics of representation and modelling resilience through their artwork. They will be asked to consider what, if any, role they see for art practice in building resilience in communities and the risks and dangers therein.

Speakers

Cass Lynch is a Koreng Wudjari Noongar woman, writer and Research Fellow at Curtin University. She is descended from the families of Ravensthorpe in the Great Southern region.

Clint Bracknell is a Noongar song-maker, composer, and Professor of Music at the University of Western Australia.

Helena Grehan is Vice Chancellor's Professorial Research Fellow at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts at Edith Cowan University.

Jo Pollitt is a transdisciplinary artist scholar and Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University with the Centre for People, Place, & Planet and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

Josephine Wilson is a Miles Franklin Award-winning author and lecturer in English and Creative Arts at Murdoch University.

Joshua Kalmund is Assistant Curator in the History Department at WA Museum Boola Bardip.

Joshua Zeunert is a Scientia Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture at the University of New South Wales.

Renée Newman is an educator and performance maker at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts at Edith Cowan University.