FORUM 2018: Delegates
Savina Sirik
Since 2004, Ms Sirik has worked for the Document Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), an organisation working to secure the memory of the Khmer Rouge period and to seek justice for genocide survivors. Savina will share her wealth of experience, from working at a community level with genocide survivors, to liaising with international stakeholders to secure support for memorial projects. Currently the DC-Cam are developing the Sleuk Rith Institute, a major complex in Phnom Penh, that will be a memorial and international centre for genocidal studies.
Aunty Sue Blacklock
Aunty Sue Blacklock, Elder of the Nucoorilma people from Tingha, part of the Gamilaraay nation, is a descendant of one of the survivors of the Myall Creek Massacre. She initiated the Myall Creek Memorial, a National Heritage-listed site where hundreds gather each year to remember and acknowledge the unprovoked massacre of 28 unarmed Aboriginal people by white stockmen on Myall Creek Station in 1838. Aunty Sue is also a passionate campaigner dedicated to tackling the over-representation of Aboriginal children and young people in out-of-home care, outside of their community and in 2010 founded Winangay, a small not-for-profit Aboriginal controlled non- government organisation. In 2016 she became Member (AM) of the Order of Australia for her significant service to the Indigenous community through advocacy roles for improved child welfare, kinship care and cultural identity.
Judy Watson
Judy Watson is a Brisbane-based, Waanyi artist, whose practice spans painting, printmaking, drawing, sculpture and video and who has exhibited nationally and internationally; in the Artist and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past (2015) at the Tate and Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation (2015) at the British Museum in London. Watson was awarded the Moët & Chandon Fellowship (1995), the National Gallery of Victoria’s Clemenger Award (2006) and the Works on Paper Award at the 23rd National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards that same year. Her recent work the names of places (2015), a research-based mapping of Aboriginal massacre sites across the country, extends the themes of earlier works by critically addressing histories and memories of frontier violence in Australia.
Greg Lehman
Descendant of the Trawulwuy people of North East Tasmania, Dr Lehman recently completed a PhD in Art History at the University of Tasmania, and a Masters degree in the History of Art and Visual Cultures at Oxford University. Greg was a founding member of the National Museum of Australia’s Indigenous Reference Group and is an Indigenous Advisor to MONA (Museum of Old and New Art). In 2017, in collaboration with MONA’s Dark Lab, he was involved in the conception of a Truth and Reconciliation Art Park as part of a major urban redevelopment project for Macquarie Point, Hobart. The project acknowledges frontier war and celebrates Tasmania's Aboriginal culture. In 2018 he is curating a major touring exhibition, ‘The National Picture: Art of Tasmania’s Black War’ at the National Gallery of Australia, and his libretto for the oratorio ‘A Tasmanian Requiem’ premiered at Hobart’s Theatre Royal. Greg is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania.
Marcia Langton
Associate Provost at the University of Melbourne, and descendant of the Yiman people in Queensland, Professor Langton AM is the mentor for the ARC project 'Representation, Remembrance and the Memorial'. One of the most significant voices in public debate on many issues relating to Indigenous Australia, she gave the 2012 Boyer Lectures, “The Quiet Revolution: Indigenous People and the Resources Boom” on ABC Ratio National, and was a member on the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians. Marcia is an anthropologist and geographer, and since 2000 has held the Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne. She has produced a large body of knowledge in the areas of political and legal anthropology, Indigenous agreements and engagement with the minerals industry, and Indigenous culture and art.
Otto Braided Hair
Descendant of the Sand Creek Massacre and representative of the Norther Cheyenne Tribe of Montana, Mr Braided Hair has been working to memorialize the Sand Creek Massacre for about twenty years, alongside representatives from Southern Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne and Southern Cheyenne tribes. He is the coordinator of the annual Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run. Each November, hundreds gather at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site to begin a run/walk over four days that ends at the Capitol Building in Denver, to commemorate and heal from the horrific events of 1864.
Lyndon Ormond-Parker
Indigenous heritage expert at the University of Melbourne, Dr Ormond-Parker was born in Darwin and is of Alyawarr decent from the Barkly tablelands region of the Northern Territory. He is an adviser on repatriation to governments, museums and Aboriginal communities and has documented and catalogued ancestral remains and cultural artefacts in Australia and overseas. Lyndon is currently a member of the Australian Heritage Council, and also a member of the Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation, Ministry for the Arts, who are currently working on the longer-term objective, that all ancestral remains (Australian Indigenous human remains), provenanced only to Australia, should be cared for in a National Resting Place.
Annie E. Coombes
Founding Director of the Peltz Gallery, School of Arts and Professor of Material and Visual Culture in the Department of History of Art, Birkbeck, University of London, Professor Coombes is a cultural historian specialising in the history and culture of British colonialism and its legacy in the present, particularly in Africa. She has produced key publications that investigate contemporary state and community-led memorial projects and museum approaches to difficult histories, including History After Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in Democratic South Africa (2003) and more recently co-authored Managing Heritage, Making Peace: History, Identity and Memory in Contemporary Kenya (2013). Annie also contributes to memorial projects and is currently an Expert Advisor to the African Union Human Rights Memorial Project (African Union and Justice Africa).
Shiraz Bayjoo
Shiraz Bayjoo is a Mauritian artist based between London and Mauritius, whose work focuses upon the legacies of European colonialism across the Indian Ocean region. Bayjoo studied at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff and was artist in residence at Whitechapel gallery during 2011, he has exhibited with Tate Britain, the Institute for International Visual Arts, 13th Biennale of Dakar, 21st Biennale of Sydney, and is a recipient of the Gasworks fellowship and the Arts Council of England. His work is represented in public and private collections both in Europe and Asia. Bayjoo is a founding member of the artist collective The Working Collection with Brook Andrew and Rushdi Anwar.
Nelson Abiti
Mr Abiti is the current Curator of Ethnography and History at the Ugandan National Museum. Abiti is involved in post-conflict community reconciliation activities in northern Uganda, focussing on displacement, post-trauma, and healing within communities through memorials. This year (2018), Abiti and a team of curators from Kenya and Egypt will implement a project 'Road to Reconciliation'. The team, along with the British Museum, are planning a touring community exhibition of South Sudanese refugee stories from camps in northern Uganda. This community exhibition project envisions healing through art, stories, and people.
Julie Gough
Julie is a Hobart based artist, writer and curator. Her matriarchal Aboriginal lineage is Trawlwoolway from Tebrikunna in far north east Tasmania, and her paternal heritage is Scottish and Irish. Dr Gough's research and art practice involves uncovering and re-presenting often conflicting and subsumed histories, many referring to her family's experiences as Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Her work in installation, sound and video invite an audience to a closer understanding of our proximity to, and continuing roles in unresolved national stories - narratives of memory, time, absence, location and representation. Since 1994 Gough has exhibited in more than 130 exhibitions including: Defying Empire, National Gallery of Australia, 2017; THE NATIONAL, MCA, 2017; With Secrecy and Despatch, Campbelltown Arts Centre,2016; undisclosed, National Gallery of Australia, 2012; Biennial of Sydney, 2006; Liverpool Biennial, UK, 2001; Perspecta, AGNSW, 1995. Julie holds a PhD from the University of Tasmania (2001) and a Masters degree (Visual Arts) University of London, Goldsmiths College (1998), as well as Bachelor degrees in Visual Arts, Prehistory and English Literature.
Corina Marino
Corina is a Warmuli/Cannemegal woman of the Darug nation. She is an educator and cultural consultant who is a traditional custodian of the land of the former Blacktown Native Institution. For the past four years, she has been working in collaboration with Urban Growth/Landcom, Blacktown Arts Centre and the Museum of Contemporary Art on various projects with artists in interpreting the site through public artworks. Corina has been working with other Darug Custodians to formulate a plan for the future use of the site, defining the most respectful way to prepare the site for ownership and cultural and recreational uses. She is also an experienced primary school teacher and education manager. Currently, Corina is part of a team of educators who are delivering a five-year Bachelor of Teaching and Indigenous Studies degree for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students across Australia.
Anne Loxley
Anne Loxley is an award-winning, Sydney-based curator and writer who works with contemporary artists both in and outside gallery contexts, in communities and in public spaces. As Senior Curator, C3West, for Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, she develops innovative ways for artists to work with businesses and non-arts organisations to address strategic issues and engage with communities. With Felicity Fenner, Anne is visual arts program associate for the 2017 – 2019 Perth Festivals. With Blair French she co-edited Civic Actions: Artists’ Practices Beyond the Museum (MCA Australia, 2017). Since 2014, with the Blacktown community, artists Tony Albert, Darren Bell, Karla Dickens, Sharyn Egan, Moogahlin Performing Arts, Steven Russell, Kristine Stewart, Leanne Tobin, and a number of First Nation professionals, C3West in collaboration with Blacktown Arts Centre has produced two multifaceted projects about the Blacktown Native Institution.
John Kirkman
John Kirkman has been Executive Director, Information and Cultural Exchange (I.C.E.) since 2012. Previously he was Chief Executive Officer Penrith Performing & Visual Arts (2005-2012). Immediate to this he was Director of the Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest (2001-2005). John Kirkman was Curator/Manager of djamu Gallery Australian Museum at Customs House (1998-2001), and was inaugural Director, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (1992-98). John was also Project Co-ordinator, Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Albury/Wodonga (1987-92). He has also worked as curator and project manager for a range of exhibitions, performance programs and major public art commissions and consultancies. Clients include Sydney International Airport (SACL), the Sydney Olympics, Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, Hawkesbury City Council and Liverpool City Council.
Jisuk Han
Jisuk Han is the founder and creative director of XSD who has been working in interpretive design, art and architecture for over 25 years. Jisuk’s extensive experience in cultural projects, collaborative artworks and architectural training combine to enable close working relationships with architects, and museum and engineering consultants. Between 2014 and 2017, Jisuk was involved with Sydney University as an Affiliate Researcher for the ARC Linkage Project ‘Holocaust Memory, Human Rights and the Contemporary Museum’. She has been contributed to many projects which have won major design awards for public art and cultural facilities, including the new permanent Holocaust/Human Rights Exhibition at the Sydney Jewish Museum.
Fabri Blacklock
Decendent of the Nucoorilma/Ngaraba people of the Tingha and Glen Innes and Biripi people from Dingo Creek (NSW) with Scottish and English ancestry, Dr Blacklock is an academic, artist, curator and educator based at the University of New South Wales Art and Design. Fabri is passionate about improving equity within education for Aboriginal peoples. In 2014, she graduated with a PhD from the University of Western Sydney, that involved recording oral histories with her Elders as well as documenting her family’s artworks and the stories behind them. Fabri is a member of the Myall Creek Memorial Committee, aiming to acknowledge and raise recognition across Australia of the nationwide massacres of Aboriginal peoples and the continued impacts of colonisation.
James Oliver
Transdisciplinary academic and writer in the Department of Design, MADA, Monash University, Dr Oliver is a Hebridean Gàidheal, from the Isle of Skye (Scotland), where he continues to work with communities and partners on cultural projects concerning memory and futures. James is also the author and editor of Associations: Creative Practice and Research, Melbourne University Publishing (2018).
Jenny Bisset
Jenny is the Manager Arts and Cultural Development/Director Blacktown Arts at Blacktown City Council. Blacktown is home to one of the largest urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations in Australia. Jenny is currently leading the development of artist and community projects commemorating the significance of the Blacktown Native Institution and celebrating the Darug people’s continuing custodianship of this place. Jenny is regarded as a senior authority on the arts in Western Sydney. Previously she worked at the Australia Council and the former NSW Ministry for the Arts.
Cameron Bruhn
Dr Cameron Bruhn is a writer, editor and publisher of architecture, landscape architecture and interior design media. He is the editorial director of Architecture Media, Australia’s leading cross-platform publisher and events organizer for the built environment community. Architecture Media’s portfolio includes Architecture Australia, Houses and Artichoke magazines, the ArchitectureAU.com and LandscapeAustralia.com websites and the Design Speaks events series. Cameron is also the editorial director of Multitudes, a monograph celebrating multidisciplinary international design practice Hassell, and co-editor of The Forever House, The Terrace House and The Apartment House, all published by Thames and Hudson.
Anthony Hoete
Dr Anthony Hoete is from the Patuwai of Motiti Island, New Zealand. He is currently engaged in numerous sovereignty and Māori land claims involving the Waitangi Tribunal and Environmental Court. Anthony is a Trustee of the NZ-UK Link Foundation and Chair of Te Maru which is working with both Britain’s largest landowner, National Trust, and Heritage NZ to return the Māori meeting house Hinemihi . Based in London, Anthony is a Director of WHAT_architecture and received awards incl. RIBA National Award, Prime Minister's Award and a Civic Trust Award. Anthony taught design at the UCL, American University of Beirut and TU Delft publishing a Reader On the Aesthetic of Mobility (2003). He is currently Honorary Research Scholar at the UCL Institute of Archaeology (future heritage).
Rushdi Anwar
Rushdi Anwar is a Melbourne-based artist originally from Kurdistan, currently working between Australia, Thailand and Kurdistan. His installation, sculpture, painting, photo-painting and video work often reflect on socio-political issues relating to Kurdistan, Iraq and the Middle East. He explores these issues through an investigation of form, utilising a material vocabulary and different processes of making. His work is featured in the recent and upcoming exhibitions the 13th Havana Biennial, Cuba, 2019; 12th Gwangju Biennale, Korea, 2018; Temporary Certainty, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, 2018; What’s Left Behind, contribution and collaboration with artist Brook Andrew, 21st Biennale of Sydney, 2018; 20th JAALA International, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 2017; and Forever Transformed, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2017.
Marcos Moreira
Professor Moreira is Professor of Information Society in the Foreign Languages applied to Multilingualism and Information Society course at the University of Brasilia. Marcos holds a PhD in Letters from the University of São Paulo (USP) École normale supérieure (ENS-rue d’Ulm) on the manuscript archives of Jacques Derrida. His experience in the area of Letters, Communication and Epistemology is applied mainly in the reflection of the following themes: alterity, representation, technique, writing, language and national identity in the globalized world of the information society.
Avril Alba
Dr Alba is Senior Lecturer in Holocaust Studies and Jewish Civilisation and Chair of the Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies at the University of Sydney. Her monograph, The Holocaust Memorial Museum: Secular Sacred Space was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2015. From 2002-2011, she was the Education Director at the Sydney Jewish Museum where she also served as the Project Director/Curator for the permanent exhibitions Culture and Continuity (opened 2009) and The Holocaust (opened 2017). Avril was co-Chief Investigator with A/Prof Jennifer Barrett and Professor Dirk Moses on the ARC Linkage Project Australian Holocaust Memory, Human Rights and the Contemporary Museum which supported the development of the permanent exhibition The Holocaust and Human Rights (opened 2018).
Emma Nicolson
Curator and educator whose work in contemporary art is grounded in social context and collaborative practice, Ms Nicolson is the founding Director of ALTAS Arts, a commissioning organisation based in the Isle of Skye in north-west Scotland. ATLAS commissions artists’ projects that explore the relationship between artistic practice, place, resources and community, their challenges and their possibilities. Emma brings more more than twenty years’ experience working within leading cultural organisations in Britain and Australia.
FORUM 2018: Other presenters
N’arweet Carolyn Briggs is a Boon Wurrung elder from Victoria who is recognised as a keeper of the history and genealogies of her people. She is a language and linguistics expert and is dedicated to recording her Boon Wurrung language in oral and written form. She has been active in community development, Native Title, cultural preservation and cultural promotion. Carolyn established Australia’s first Aboriginal childcare centre and is founder and chairperson of the Boon Wurrung Foundation, which she set up in 2005 to help connect Aboriginal youth to their heritage. Carolyn is also a member of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples.
Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe is a Rwandan-British composer and multidisciplinary artist. Through her viewpoint as a synaesthetic ‘third-culture kid’, her research-based arts practice investigates the construction and archiving of culture through transcription into musical score. Stéphanie artistically expresses her ongoing research findings in graphic music scores and textiles, narrative and performance ceremony, and cultural contextualisation through public cross-generational conversations.
Dr Brian Martin is a leading Indigenous artist and academic. Born in Redfern Sydney, he is from Murrawari, Bundjalung and Kamilaroi ancestry with a PhD by research from Deakin University. A practising artist for 25 years, Brian has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. His publication history has investigated the relationship of materialism in the arts to an Indigenous worldview and Aboriginal knowledge framework and epistemology. Recently, Dr Martin was Deputy Director and Head of Research of the Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin University Australia and is currently Honorary Professor of Eminence at Centurion University of Technology and Management in Orisha India as well as a Senior Lecturer at MADA (Monash University Art, Design & Architecture). He also provides cultural awareness programs and Reconciliation Actions Plans to various organisations and government departments as Managing Director of Brian Martin Consultancy.
Dr Christine Phillips is a registered architect, senior lecturer at RMIT University, freelance writer and director of OoPLA. Completing her PhD in Architectural History in 2015, Christine has a special interest in Australian architecture and its heritage and been actively involved in bringing architecture to the public realm through her ongoing contribution to media, publications and practice.
Jock Gilbert is a landscape architect and academic at RMIT School of Architecture and Urban Design. He coordinates the Design Research Seminar stream in the Masters of Landscape Architecture program and has led Design Studio based projects in Vietnam, East Africa and regional and remote Australia.
Professor Lyndall Ryan is research academic in the Centre for the 21st Century Humanities at the University of Newcastle. Since the 1970s Lyndall has researched Australian frontier violence and in July 2017 launched the website Colonial Frontier Massacres in Eastern Australia 1788-1872.