Lived experiences, survivor perspectives and community critiques – an honest examination of Australia’s fixation with the dehumanising incarceration of our First Peoples and inhumane detainment of asylum seekers and refugees.

On the eve of Marrugeku’s final performances of their award-winning production Jurrungu Ngan-ga [Straight Talk], the company presents a special Community In-Conversation event to open up the work’s themes from community perspectives.

Examining Australia’s fixation of locking up that which it fears, conversations will cover the inhumane over-policing and incarceration of Australia’s First Peoples in vast numbers, the dehumanising detention of refugees and asylum seekers on prison islands and the role of art to connect these painful issues.

In Conversation: Out of Sight Out of Mind — Incarceration and the Australian Psyche

Panel Speakers
Mostafa ‘Moz’ Azimitabar (Kurdish refugee, artist, musician, writer & human rights activist)
Apryl Day (Yorta Yorta, Wemba Wemba, & Barapa Barapa; Executive Officer & Founder of Dhadjowa Foundation)
Leah House (Ngambri, Ngunnawal, & Wiradjuri; Black Peoples Union Vice President and Aboriginal Victim Liaison Officer, ACT Human Rights Commission). 

Moderated by Bruce Gorring (European & Chinese Kartiya, Principal & Founder of Generativity Co.)

Marrugeku’s Co-Artistic Directors, Dalisa Pigram (Yawuru & Bardi) and Rachael Swain (Anglo Pākehā) will introduce the event, sharing the background to Jurrungu Ngan-ga and the processes involved in its creation with short video excerpts of the work. Along with a short video statement by Elahe Zividar, (Iranian artist, architect, videographer, photographer and documentary maker) reflecting on her experience of incarceration in Nauru through her responses to seeing Jurrungu Ngan-ga. 

Marrugeku’s performance of Jurrungu Ngan-ga vividly expressed the internal struggles of asylum seekers, which mirror many of those experienced by Indigenous peoples in Australia’. The dehumanisation that you feel imprisoned at the hands of a terribly cruel system – one designed to break you psychologically and physically, to take all your hope and crush all non-white others. - Elahe Zividar, 2022.

Framing the conversation through the lived experiences of each panellist, we examine the actions of consecutive federal governments as complicit in generating a ‘fear of the Other’; the cultural, philosophical and political framing of ‘fear’ in the Australian psyche and what it represents; and why “Australia wishes to lock away, to put behind walls, and to isolate” First Peoples, asylum seekers, and refugees.

12noon - Refreshments available: tea & coffee and a light lunch provided
12.30pm - Welcome to Country 
12.40pm - Marrugeku's co-Artistic Directors introduce Jurrungu Ngan-ga with a teaser trailer and a video review from Elahe Zivardar
12.55pm - In Conversation with panel members Apryl Day, Leah House, Mostafa 'Moz' Azimitabar moderated by Bruce Gorring 
2pm - Event finish 

Cant attend in person, here is the link to join the LIVE STREAM

This event is presented by Marrugeku, with support from Canberra Museum and Gallery and Canberra Theatre Centre.

MARRUGEKU'S
JURRUNGU NGAN-GA [STRAIGHT TALK] presented by Canberra Theatre Centre
23 + 24 August, 7pm 

BOOK TICKETS TO THE PERFORMANCE HERE: https://canberratheatrecentre....