Un-Tabled is a learning series by Food and Art Research Network (FAR) in which artists from our global network come together, through dialogue or hands-on workshops, to journey deeper into the depths of their creative practices. The series is an international platform, weaving together the threads of artistic research, ecological imagination, and embodied knowledge worldwide.

For our second in the series we invite you to an online workshop and screening of Alana Hunt’s film Surveilling a Crime Scene. Key texts will be provided that will guide the discussion including Alana’s own writing and conversational texts with Mona Bhan, Ross Gibson, Chris Griffiths and David Newry, alongside essays by Evelyn Araluen and James C. Scott. The screening and reading will be followed by an intimate discussion with the artist hosted by Meenakshi Thirukode.

Shot on Super 8mm, Hunt’s film examines the materialisation of non-Indigenous life on Miriwoong Country in the remote north-west of Australia, tracing how contemporary agricultural practices, dams, tourism, and bureaucratic interventions form a tapestry of ongoing colonial violence within daily life.

Alana’s forensic and intuitive approach to art making and writing has turned the idea of agriculture as nourishment upside down, engaging with the colonial violence embedded in what she describes as colonial dreams—their absurdities, fragilities and failures, most recently materialised on Miriwoong Country through sandalwood production and industrial scale prawn farms. Meenakshi will host a conversation that draws on a generous approach to Hunt’s practice and lived experiences in the region, inviting participants to question how land, food, and culture are entangled with histories of dispossession and the enduring realities of colonialism.

Together, we will explore the ways in which agriculture in this region of the world is not a story of growth and sustenance, but a series of violent, failing endeavours that challenge how we understand our relationship to land, food, and each other.

What you need to know?
This is an online session. Each session runs for 90 minutes with opportunities for participation and engagement.

We ask for a sliding-scale contribution of between $3–$15 (AUD) based on your access to funds. Your support helps us sustain the collective labor that brings this series to your table, including the bare essential needs of the network.

ABOUT

Food and Art Research Network:

FAR is a constellation of established artists and cultural workers engaging with the politics and aesthetics of food. It is a network of living relations that nurtures peer learning, exchanges, and encounters in and beyond the field of art.

@food_art_research_network

Alana Hunt:

Alana makes art and writes. She has worked with journalists, filmmakers, human rights defenders and lawyers on bodies of work that unfold over many years, with accumulating resonance in the places they take root, and beyond. The iterative memorial Cups of nun chai (2010-ongoing) was serialised in 86 editions of the newspaper Kashmir Reader (2016-17) and published by Yaarbal Books (2020). Her film Surveilling a Crime Scene (2023) was awarded Best Short Documentary at the Sharjah Film Platform 2024. A Deceptively Simple Need is her current body of work that will premiere in a solo exhibition at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, October 2025.

@alanavhunt

Meenakshi Thirukode:

Meenakshi is a writer and artist with a focus on intersecting histories of culture, politics, resistance and visual culture. She’s was formerly the Director of Communications and Cultural Partnerships for The Polis Project, New York, an art, culture and politics magazine and media organisation that focuses on documenting communities in resistance.

@kanmaniponmani

Sydney, Australia Sat, 16 Aug 2025 at 18:00 AEST

Singapore, Sat, 16 Aug 2025 at 16:00 SGT

New Delhi, India Sat, 16 Aug 2025 at 13:30 IST

Helsinki, Finland Sat, 16 Aug 2025 at 11:00 EEST

Madrid, Spain Sat, 16 Aug 2025 at 10:00 CEST

London, UK Sat, 16 Aug 2025 at 09:00 BST

Contact the host of Un-tabled: Surveilling a Crime Scene