MTHF Talk: Parks Anonymous (Merinda Davies and Laurie Oxenford)

Park Anonymous is a collaboration between Merinda Davies and Laurie Oxenford emerging from ongoing conversations and research crossovers primarily concerning urban ecologies, public space, more-than-human species relationality, and community participation. Together they imagine and speculate on future public "interstructure" that supports human and more-than-human needs in public park spaces. They have defined "Interstructures" as reciprocal structures, systems, services and facilities designed to support living beings (human and more-than-human), communities and ecologies. "Interstructures" are not optimised for economic advantage, instead they prioritise planetary survival and a shift toward everyday, relational ways of being. 

This project is supported by the City of Gold Coast Regional Arts Development Fund. Parks Anonymous has been developed with consultation from Furtherfield (United Kingdom), Lawrence English (Australia), Relative Creative (Australia) and Non-Human Nonsense (Germany, Sweden).

• - 10:00-10:20am indoors at Z9 607
  
• - 10:20-11:00am outdoor walk/intervention on KG campus/Barrambin. 
• - Attendees to please bring a hat , wear comfortable shoes.

Merinda Davies' practice aims to find clarity and connection in the external world through deep listening, observation, and research into the emotional and physical states in our internal worlds. She grew up in Bundjalung Country, Northern NSW, and is currently living and creating on Kombumerri Country/Yugambeh language group, in South East QLD.

Laurie Oxenford experiments at the intersection of informal and formal public practices related to architecture, maintenance, mapping, construction and governance. She uses found material to query the way urban spaces are formed, reformed and participated in. Resourcefulness, process and materiality take precedence.