Creative Living in Chaotic Times-Education in the Anthropocene, Creativity and Collective Action for Living Well in a Changing World
Description
Creative Living in Chaotic Times
Education in the Anthropocene, Creativity and Collective Action for Living Well in a Changing World
Hybrid Symposium | Western Sydney University-Parramatta | 26 November 2026 9am-4pm
Creative Living in Chaotic Times Not your usual symposium. Creative Living in Chaotic Times moves from the hyperlocal to the international, bringing together creative thinkers and doers who want to make a difference in their own communities while confronting the larger forces shaping how we live.
Through in-conversation and participatory sessions, we explore the defining challenges of our time—from violence, economic inequality and the climate crisis to social and political fragmentation, the anxious generation, and the future of human creativity in an age of AI. But this is also about hope, agency and action.
Experience embodied, trauma-informed eco-wellbeing practice; exchange ideas and stories; contribute your art and hopes for our collective futures to the Love Letters to the Earth exhibition; and help co-create a Manifesto for Creative Living for what we need, individually and collectively, to live well in chaotic times.
Come to listen, question, create, connect and act. Only 50 in-person places are available register now to be part of the conversation.
What kind of world are we educating for, and What kind of humans are we becoming within it?
The Creative Living Symposium is a one-day interdisciplinary gathering in community and creative dialogue to explore how education can support living well, acting wisely and creating more just and sustainable futures within planetary disruption.
At the centre of the symposium is Creative Cultural Wellbeing: the role of creative, cultural and educational life in supporting human flourishing, ecological awareness, agency and community wellbeing in the Anthropocene.
Why this symposium matters
Reimagine education as a shared practice for living with uncertainty, caring for place and acting collectively.
Explore creativity as a human and planetary capacity for meaning-making, agency, critique and renewal.
Connect universities, cultural institutions, communities and education systems in practical and imaginative ways.
Develop shared propositions for a Manifesto for Creative Living and Education in the Anthropocene.
Key Highlights : Featured Thought Leaders
Professor Florian Schneider, Founding Director of Institute for Creativity, University of Galway and President of the Society for Artistic Research. Curator, writer and filmmaker.
Dr Gus Casely-Hayford OBE , Inaugural Director of V&A East (UK) London.
Danielle Denichaud, RHN MA
Holistic Nutritionist and Trauma-Informed Wellness Educator,University of Toronto
Dr Jane Gleeson-White — Writer and Author on economics, value, nature and flourishing societies.
Viv White AM, Co-founder of Big Picture Learning Australia — young people’s interests, agency and meaningful learning.
Associate Professor Dr Josh Wodak,Western Sydney University. Researcher, Writer and Artist
Kiri Zakinthinos, CEO Curiousworks. Arts writer and Creative Producer
Caitlin Newton-Broad Educator at Liverpool Boys High School and Creative Producer
Emmanuel K Asante Visual artist
Associate Professor David R. Cole — Western Sydney University Academic, Writer and Author in philosophy of education, Deleuzian thought and Anthropocene living.
Dr Karin Louise- Western Sydney University Creative and Cultural Wellbeing . Artist, Academic, Cultural Researcher
We especially invite contributions from:
Creative institutions, interdisciplinary research cultures and international communities of practice.
Universities, cultural institutions and communities to work together.
Learners, philosophers, researchers, artists , creatives and citizens responding creatively to ecological, social and technological change.
Creative and Community leaders.
Young people
Future partners with Western Sydney University
Symposium outcome
Participants will work towards shared propositions for a Manifesto for Creative Living and Education in the Anthropocene, identifying practical possibilities for research, curriculum innovation, community practice, institutional partnerships and future collaborations.
Join us to imagine and create a sustainable way of living for the future in collective action!
Hybrid participation available. This is a primarily an in person event and online participation can be arranged.
In person- 50 places only available
For Online Participants Only -Free to Register
https://uws.zoom.us/meeting/register/xIfdjePQToatFDwsUP_AlQs
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email and a zoom link which will be sent a week prior to the event.
Speakers and Panellists
Dr Gus Casely-Hayford OBE , Director of V & A East London
Dr Gus Casely-Hayford OBE is the Director of the new V & A East in London. He is a British curator, cultural historian, broadcaster and lecturer with ancestral Ghanaian roots in the Casely-Hayford family, born in 1964 in Wandsworth, London. Born and educated in London, he received a doctorate in African history from SOAS, University of London, where he is Professor of Practice. He has held senior roles across the arts. He directed Africa 05, the largest African arts season ever hosted in Britain, led the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA), and served as Executive Director, Arts Strategy, for the Arts Council England. From 2018 he was director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC. As a broadcaster, he presented the BBC series Lost Kingdoms of Africa and wrote its companion book (Bantam Press, 2012). He has delivered a TEDGlobal talk on pre-colonial Africa and is the author of a book on Timbuktu and the rise of the Mali Empire. Gus was named one of Time Magazine TIME100 top influential art leaders in 2026 . He will inspire us about why stories matter and the power of creativity and cultural institutions to change hearts and minds . Gus will be appearing online .
Professor Florian Schneider -Director Institute for Creativity , University of Galway
Professor Florian Schneider is founding Director of the University of Galway’s Institute for Creativity, a research institute launched in June 2026 to explore creativity as a force that reshapes every field of knowledge, from life sciences and engineering to business and law. Under his leadership, the Institute pursues research at the intersection of creativity and technology, rooted in arts-based practice, and champions cultural and linguistic diversity as a strength for Ireland and Europe. Schneider brings more than 20 years of experience in university teaching and academic leadership. He is also Visiting Professor of Art Theory and Documentary Practices at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where he has worked since 2013. Since 2022, he has served as President of the Society for Artistic Research, and is scientific coordinator of PACESETTERS, a Horizon Europe project examining how arts and culture can drive the transition to sustainable, regenerative economies.
Dr Karin Louise - Senior Lecturer Cultural Wellbeing-Western Sydney University
Dr Karin Louise is Senior Lecturer in Culture Wellbeing in the School of Education , Western Sydney University. She is a cultural researcher, educator and artist exploring how we can live well together through creative responses to social, cultural and ecological challenges, focusing on youth, women and migrants. She developed the Cultural Wellbeing Framework, a provocation-led model supporting belonging and social cohesion across education, community and cultural sectors. Through partnerships with the Sydney Opera House, V&A East, the Art Gallery of NSW, the Australian Museum and the Powerhouse Museum, she has shaped Creative Citizenship and Cultural Wellbeing strategy. At Western Sydney University, she established Australia’s first university-wide minor in Cultural Wellbeing. She advises Multicultural NSW, the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage and Host International. Karin curated the Earthspirit Festival, featuring over 1,000 women’s stories. Her upcoming exhibition with Karen Maber, All Is Not Lost: A Women’s Remedy for Healing the Soul at Braemar Gallery in the Blue Mountains opening in 2027, explores resilience and cultural healing through diverse cultural perspectives.
Associate Professor David R Cole- Head of Communities, Creativity and Environments Western Sydney University
Associate Professor David R Cole is Head of Discipline, Communities, Creativity and Environments at Western Sydney University. With over two decades’ experience across four continents he holds a PhD in Philosophy of Education from the University of Warwick and helped found the ‘Deleuze and Education’ field, which explores the implications of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s ideas for educational theory and practice. David has published 18 books and more than 130 other publications. His current work asks how education can make a difference in an era of anthropogenic planetary boundary crossing. He is founder and director of the International Institute for Research in the Anthropocene (IIRA), a web-based platform for interdisciplinary, collaborative research, and leads the ‘Education in the Anthropocene’ research program and co-convenes the World Education Research Association network of the same name. His mission is to inspire and empower educators and learners to create positive social and environmental change through innovative and critical thinking.
Danielle Denichaud Holistic Nutritionist and Trauma-Informed Wellness Educator and Lecturer University of Toronto
Danielle Denichaud, RHN MA Danielle is a Holistic Nutritionist and Trauma-Informed Wellness Educator. She is a lecturer with the University of Toronto Mississauga and Toronto Metropolitan University. Danielle weaves between the fields of somatics, wellbeing and education to research salient praxes for building peace-oriented, hope-fecund and empowered learning communities. She has been a performing artist and movement educator for twenty-eight years, a clinical holistic health practitioner for newborns to elders for fifteen years, and currently shares her interdisciplinary work with young adult artists, aspiring educators and teacher educators.
Associate Professor Josh Wodak
Joshua Wodak is a writer, artist, and Associate Professor at the School of Arts, Western Sydney University. His lyrical, playful, and deadly serious work explores ideas about the unfolding rupture of life on Earth (climate crisis, Anthropocene, Sixth Extinction Event et. al.) in the context of this planet’s propensity to constantly unleash its own crises, time, and time again. That is: how to live on an inherently unstable Earth, and in an inherently catastrophic cosmos. His first book is ‘Petrified: Living During a Rupture of Life on Earth’, published in the Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies series by Heidelberg University (De Gruyter, 2025).
Jane Gleeson-White author and writer
Jane Gleeson-White is a reader and writer living on unceded Gadigal country of the Eora Nation, aka Sydney, Australia. She received a 2025 Whitlam Essay Residency to write about belief, unseen realms and ancestral hauntings. This is part of her ongoing research into the impact of war on the bodies of women and children, which includes My mother’s silence, my nation’s shame (Griffith Review, 2022) and Gardening the Silence (Wonderground, 2022). She is the author of four books, including the international bestseller Double Entry: How the merchants of Venice created modern finance (2011), and its sequel Six Capitals: Capitalism, climate change and accounting (2014, 2020). Six Capitals was the creative work for her PhD in creative writing - Nature in the 21st Century (2016) - which also included a scholarly dissertation on representations of Country in the novels of Alexis Wright and Kim Scott called Country Manifest. She was an adjunct lecturer in English literature and creative writing at the University of New South Wales from 2018 to 2024.
Viv Whte AM-CEO Big Picture Learning
Viv White AM is Co-Founder and CEO of Big Picture Learning Australia (BPLA). She set up the non-profit with John Hogan in 2006 to bring Big Picture Learning’s personalised, student-driven design for learning to Australian schools. Under her leadership the network has grown to more than 45 schools and campuses in urban and regional communities, opening new pathways for thousands of young people. Viv also created the International Big Picture Learning Credential (IBPLC). It’s an alternative to the ATAR, backed by the University of Melbourne and accepted for entry by universities across Australia. Before Big Picture, she was CEO of the Victorian Schools Innovation Commission and co-founder and CEO of the Australian National Schools Network. Viv is a Member of the Order of Australia. She was inducted into the Australian Businesswomen’s Network Hall of Fame in 2014 and named one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence in 2019.
Kiri Zakinthinos, CEO of CuriousWorks
Kiri Zakinthinos is the CEO of CuriousWorks. She sustains a writing practice alongside my work in arts management, self-publishing commentary and review pieces on the theme of cultural diversity in the arts on my blog (see link) . Her essays and creative non-fiction pieces have been commissioned by Sydney Living Museums and published by Sydney Review of Books. She was a member of the Create NSW CACD Artform Board 2024-2025; and of the Fairfield City Council Arts Advisory Committee 2025-2026. I hold a Graduate Diploma in Creative and Cultural Industries Management from the University of Technology, Sydney, a Bachelor of Music from the University of NSW and a Graduate Diploma in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from the University of NSW Institute of Languages. Kiri has extensive experience across producing, management and policy. She has been General Manager at Urban Theatre Projects and a Creative Producer at Campbelltown Arts Centre and Think+DO Tank, and has held advisory roles with the City of Canterbury Bankstown and the Australia Council for the Arts. She is also an independent arts professional and writer through Cultural Omnivore, and taught as a casual academic at Western Sydney University. Kiri holds a Bachelor of Music from UNSW and a Postgraduate Diploma in Creative and Cultural Industries Management from UTS.
Emmanuel Asante, artist
Emmanuel Asante Emmanuel Asante is a Ghanaian-Australian visual artist, muralist, educator and public speaker living and working on Dharug land in Western Sydney. He arrived in Australia from Ghana in 2015 and graduated from Eagle Vale High School in 2018, and later completed a Certificate III in Design Fundamentals at TAFE NSW. Largely self-taught, Emmanuel began painting to work through depression and personal experiences, and found community and artistic grounding through the Refugee Art Project. His influences include his Ghanaian heritage, Frida Kahlo and his mentor Abdul Abdullah. He creates vibrant portraits and murals that celebrate the strength of the people around him and speak to the experiences of migrants and refugees. An artist with disability and a member of We Are Studios, he has exhibited with Blacktown Arts and Firstdraft, and runs art workshops with high school students. In 2024 he received the Creative Australia Kirk Robson Award for Community Arts and Cultural Development.
Dr Sarah Crinall
Dr Sarah Crinall is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Southern Cross University. Her teaching and research span science childhoods, place-based relational philosophies of education and arts-based methodologies. She is interested in the practical, ethical and everyday dimensions of learning, particularly the informal learning ecologies that exist within families and communities. A central thread of her work is the concept of sustenance in education, which she has explored through the lens of early years motherhood. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and a Graduate Diploma of Education from the University of Melbourne, and completed her PhD at Western Sydney University in 2017. Her doctoral work was recognised internationally when she received the American Educational Research Association’s 2018 Outstanding Dissertation Award in Division D (Measurement and Research Methodologies). Through her scholarship she brings creative, arts-informed and relational approaches to how children, educators and communities come to know the world.
Tracey Callinan OAM CEO Regional Arts NSW
Dr Tracey Callinan OAM is Chief Executive Officer of Regional Arts NSW. She took up the role in 2022 and now oversees the 14 regional arts development organisations across regional NSW, providing strategic direction for sustainable arts and cultural development in each region. Before that, she spent 13 years as Executive Director of Arts OutWest, the regional arts development organisation based in Bathurst. She grew up in Goulburn and left regional NSW at 18 to study at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She has worked as a freelance musician since 1984, taught at the Sydney Conservatorium and founded several choirs, and she spent years working overseas before returning in 2009. She also served on the NSW Government Taskforce that developed the state’s first framework for Health and the Arts. Tracey received the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the performing arts and to the community. She is a strong advocate for the role the arts play in the life of regional communities.
Kerri Glassock , Executive Director Create NSW
Kerri Glasscock is the Executive Director of Create NSW, the NSW Government’s arts, culture and creative industries agency. She leads the agency’s work to turn the priorities of Creative Communities into practical support for artists, organisations, and audiences across the state. Under Kerri’s leadership, Create NSW delivered the 2026 Creative Statement to Parliament, the first statutory report of its kind, establishing a stronger evidence base for future cultural policy and investment in NSW. The agency has also advanced major strategies for writing and literature, regional NSW, Western Sydney, and fashion, connecting long-term priorities with targeted programs, partnerships, and investment. Before joining Create NSW, Kerri was CEO and Festival Director of the Sydney Fringe Festival from 2013 to June 2025 and Deputy Chair of the NSW Government’s Creative Communities Council from 2024 to 2025. An independent theatre maker, award-winning venue owner, and artistic director, she brings extensive experience in cultural policy, sector development, and the independent arts, along with deep understanding of what artists and creative organisations need to thrive.
Caitlin Newton-Broad, Liverpool Boys High School
High School Teacher English and Big Picture at Liverpool Boys High School Sydney Australia.
Dr Rachael Jacobs Associate Professor Western Sydney University
Rachael Jacobs is an Associate Professor in Creative Arts Education at Western Sydney University and a former secondary Dance, Drama and Music teacher. Her research spans cultural diversity in the teacher workforce, racial justice and language development through the arts. Her PhD on creativity assessment informed changes to Senior Secondary curriculum and assessment in Australia. She has co-authored reports for the OECD and UNESCO’s Futures of Education initiative, and written two Arts Education textbooks. Rachael has led arts projects in refugee communities, prisons and women’s refuges across Australia. She runs anti-racism programs through the arts in NSW schools and designs bespoke DEI programs for the arts and community sectors. A founding member of Teachers for Refugees, she sits on the boards of climate advocacy group Sweltering Cities and PYT Fairfield. She is also a freelance writer, choreographer, aerial arts instructor and director of her own intercultural dance company in Sydney.
Jagath Dheerasekera, multidisciplinary artist
Jagath Dheerasekara is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work is informed by his personal and collective memory, colonisation, and the fragility of the principles of humanity. Born in Sri Lanka, Jagath was forced to flee the island due to political persecution in the early 1990s. Jagath is a recipient of grants from the Amnesty International Human Rights Innovation Fund and Creative Australia. Dheerasekara has presented his work in a number of solo and selected group exhibitions. His work is held in both institutional and private collections, including the Campbelltown City Council Art Collection, the Museum of Australian Photography, the State Library of New South Wales, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the Liverpool City Council Art Collection. Jagath has been a resident at several art organisations, both as an artist and a curator, including Bundanon Art Museum, Utp, ArtsHouse and the Museum of History NSW. Jagath lives on Gundungurra Country in Western Sydney.
Dr Cheryle Yin Lo, Academic Tutor and Artist
Dr Cheryle Yin Lo is Research Assistant for Creative Living in Chaotic Times . She is an interdisciplinary artist, arts educator and community cultural development specialist and cultural strategist with over 30 years’ experience across Australia and overseas in the creative industries and arts and cultural policy at local, State and Federal level.and spent a decade in cultural development in local government In Western Sydney. She has taught in China and lived and worked in Peru and co-established Drik Photography Library in Bangladesh . Her Doctorate at Western Sydney University, undertaken as the inaugural Cultural Development Manager with the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute, examined creative arts as a catalyst for community participation in environmental stewardship in the Greater Blue Mountains working with First Nations, diverse communities and environment management stakeholders. She is a member of the Land Arts Collective (UK) and recently returned from an international artist residency in Peru. She teaches printmaking at the Blue Mountains Creative Arts Centre and exhibits with the Sydney Printmakers and joins other Blue Mountains artists and ecologists in projects such as the Swamp Residencies Project and Disruptor -And All That Matters and initiated Earth Arts Forum in partnership with the Australian Earth Laws Alliance. As a creative mentor she helps people to design and live an extrarordinary creative life and integrates creativity into everyday life. She manages a sustainable tourism business focussing on World Heritage areas. As an academic tutor at Western Sydney University she teaches the Scientist Artist Teacher Program, teaching STEAM and connecting artmaking for science communication for future educators of young people and has been involved in Cultural Wellbeing research and projects with Western Sydney University. She is a health and eco wellbeing and sustainability advocate and volunteers with UNAA NSW School Program team promoting the UN Sustainable Development Goals to primary and second schools in NSW and creative based projects.
How to Get to the Symposium
Getting to the Conference – Western Sydney University, Parramatta City Campus
Venue: Peter Shergold Building, Western Sydney University Parramatta City campus, One Parramatta Square, 169 Macquarie Street, Parramatta
Conference room:TBC
Please use public transport if you can. The building is about 2 minutes' walk from Parramatta Station, and there is no on-campus parking.
Public transport
Train: Get off at Parramatta Station. Walk through the station's Retail Link into Parramatta Square, or use the Macquarie Street or Darcy Street exits. It's about a 2-minute walk.
Bus: The Parramatta Bus Interchange is less than 100 m from the building.
Light rail: Use the Parramatta Square stop on the Westmead–Carlingford line. Trams run about every 9 minutes.
From Sydney Airport: Take the train to Parramatta and change at Central. Allow about 60 minutes.
From Western Sydney International Airport: The Super Shuttle WSI express bus runs to Parramatta CBD. Fares start from $25.
Plan your trip at transportnsw.info. Tap on with Opal or a contactless card.
Driving and parking
No on-campus parking. Parking inside Parramatta Square is for tenants only.
Parramatta Square Public Car Park (Wilson Parking): Enter by the ramp at the corner of Smith Street and Darcy Street, take the second exit at the roundabout, and follow the signs to the public car park on Level B1. It's open 24 hours and cashless.
Parramatta Station Car Park (Wilson Parking): 15–17 Wentworth Street. It's open 24 hours, cashless, and about a 5-minute walk away.
Westfield Parramatta: Paid shopping-centre parking, about 2 minutes' walk away.
Street parking: Metered and time-limited, so it's not suitable for a full day.
Cost: CBD car parks charge by the hour or the day. Check the operator's website, or book ahead for a cheaper rate.
Drop-off, taxis and ride-share
Taxi and ride-share pick-up and drop-off is on Darcy Street, outside 6 & 8 Parramatta Square.
There are also Kiss + Ride drop-off points on Darcy Street around Parramatta Square.
On the day
Enter Parramatta Square from Macquarie Street, Smith Street or the station link. The Peter Shergold Building is at 169 Macquarie Street.
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
