Women over the age of 55 are the fastest growing cohort of homeless in Australia and current research estimates that more than 400,000 women over the age of 45 are at risk of homelessness. Women who find themselves at risk of homelessness in later life have often led productive lives and have had conventional housing histories. What factors have placed them at risk of homelessness and what can we do to help? This discussion addresses these questions from a personal, social and human rights persp...
Apr 22, 2022•1 hr 32 min
As housing prices increase, more and more older women are seeking access to affordable housing alternatives. Nursing homes, retirement villages, expensive private rentals and traditional owner-mortgage arrangements are no longer meeting the financial or social needs of many. Hear about existing and emerging alternative housing options in Victoria—why they are needed, what they are trying to achieve and how they are funded. Speakers: Jennifer Kulas – Development Manager, Nightingale Housing, 2020...
Apr 22, 2022•48 min
Renowned visual artist Patricia Piccinini in conversation with wildlife scientist and marine mammal expert Dr Vanessa Pirotta. Tune in to learn everything there is to know about these extraordinary creatures, their more typical journeys through the ocean and how their wondrous evolution became the inspiration behind Patricia’s Skywhales.
Mar 15, 2022•58 min
For 80,000+ years Aboriginal knowledge systems have guided the way humans interact with and care for Country. Join Krystal De Napoli in conversation with Zena Cumpston, Kirsten Banks, and William Stevens as they discuss the strength within Aboriginal science and how engaging with Aboriginal perspectives can lead to the healing of both land and sky Country. Zena Cumpston is a Barkandji researcher and curator of the exhibition Emu Sky now showing at Old Quad on University of Melbourne’s Parkville ...
Mar 15, 2022•1 hr 16 min
Painting Country is about more than words can convey. It is at the heart of some of Australia’s most vital creative, cultural and political movements. To paint Country is to make visible a world of meaning and values that are otherwise often lost in translation. Aboriginal artists, diplomats and intellectuals have continually sought to cross the divide of cross-cultural ignorance and misunderstanding through the sharing of their Country. From the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, the Barunga Statement, t...
Mar 15, 2022•59 min
In Australia, post-war modernism was a response to the profound social change that occurred following World War II. We are now living through another time of intense global change, and uncertainty is impacting our lives. How will current issues—such as the global pandemic and climate change—impact how we approach the way we live, and housing, for the years ahead? This panel discussion looks at domestic spaces and the rituals surrounding them—how they influenced how we lived in the past, and shap...
Mar 15, 2022•1 hr 27 min
Rituals have many functions—to maintain connection, honour history, and build the future by observing the important present. The rise of Asian-Australian podcasting did exactly this in the wake of increasing hostility towards Asians as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Through podcasts, Asian-Australians embraced their identities, celebrated their unique brands of pop culture, and shared their life experiences. So take your shoes off, take a seat, and listen to this inspirational conversatio...
Mar 15, 2022•56 min
After 40+ years in print, Artlink proudly delivers its annual Artlink Indigenous issue, Visualising Sovereignty, edited by Paola Balla and Ali Gumillya Baker. Now in its eleventh year, this platform brings together leading First Nations scholars, artists and curators from across the country who have responded critically and candidly to the political, social and cultural issues of the moment. Come and join Artlink Editor Una Rey, and Naarm-based First Nations writers as they discuss the magazine’...
Mar 15, 2022•44 min
This talk brings together three of the most exciting and highly regarded emerging First Nations artists showing at the 2022 Melbourne Art Fair. Butchulla and Burmese artist Mia Boe, Arrernte artist Thea Anamara Perkins and Quandamooka artist Kyra Mancktelow all work in different styles, mediums and methods but through their contemporary practice, they are all storytellers; exploring what it means to be First Nations in contemporary Australia, tackling historical inquiry and reclaiming their stor...
Mar 15, 2022•49 min
'Suspended Activation' is an installation designed by the Stockholm-based architecture office Secretary and fabricated in Melbourne by Ellen Sayers. Part outdoor gym equipment, part children’s play equipment, the structure repurposes the resistance bands used in physiotherapy and fitness training in order to invite its audiences to engage with its malleable surfaces, which deform and stretch under the weight of bodies young and old. 'Suspended Activation' (affectionately known as 'Susie' to her ...
Feb 04, 2022•36 min
The pandemic, climate change, and the continued constraints on international (and interstate!) travel have left us reimagining how we recharge. Exploring themes of resilience, tourism, place, culture, technology, transport and history, we question: How might we still get away from it all? This discussion looks at lessons from our past to help reinvent our future—proving that the journey can be as important as the destination!
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 26 min
Climate change, the pandemic, and decades of unchecked development have left our city crying out for more meaningful design. As we grapple with the changes of the ‘now,’ and how to re-engage with the urban, questions on what needs to be done to repair our relationship with the city are increasingly relevant. In this conversation, the multidisciplinary panel featuring Andy Fergus, Maddi Miller, Amelia Leavesley and Rory Hyde, moderated by Lily Di Sciascio and Woodrow Smith, seeks to answer the qu...
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 1 min
In a scorching summer when we are seeking sand and sea, how does Melbourne entice its citizens to stay local and vacay in their own town? This panel, convened by Yarra Pools, brings together activists, artists and thinkers to explore the possibilities of how the Yarra Birrarung could become the ultimate summer destination.
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 3 min
How do you talk about your work? How do you connect with what drives you? How have the past couple of years disrupted your practice? And how long has it been since you’ve paused and reflected on how and why you create work – and what might come next? In this conversation, long-time MPavilion collaborator Esther Anatolitis provides much-needed space and time for reinvigoration designed to reconnect you with your practice, your peers and your future.
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 40 min
How do the spaces we inhabit allow for spontaneity and play? How can we embed these ways of being into the built environment? Hear us unpack these questions and more in a two-part series dedicated to exploring the influence of active and accidental play on the built environment. Join artist and assistant professor at Williams College, Pallavi Sen, sit down with two fascinating practitioners who investigate the meaning of play in their work—Melbourne based painter and illustrator Esther Stewart, ...
Jan 26, 2022•37 min
How do the spaces we inhabit allow for spontaneity and play? How can we embed these ways of being into the built environment? Hear us unpack these questions and more in a two-part series dedicated to exploring the influence of active and accidental play on the built environment. Join artist and assistant professor at Williams College, Pallavi Sen, sit down with two fascinating practitioners who investigate the meaning of play in their work—Melbourne based painter and illustrator Esther Stewart, ...
Jan 26, 2022•40 min
A series of ‘Illuminating Conversations’ with Place Intelligence explores the role of data in cities, in public institutions and how its role has changed with Covid-19 and the climate emergency. DATA AS ILLUMINATION - Urban data experts discuss how new forms of city data make hidden patterns visible and public, illuminating access to knowledge, and how our knowledge institutions are responsible for the ways that ideas move and spread through a city. KNOWLEDGE AS ILLUMINATION - Cultural and knowl...
Jan 25, 2022•49 min
A series of ‘Illuminating Conversations’ with Place Intelligence explores the role of data in cities, in public institutions and how its role has changed with Covid-19 and the climate emergency. DATA AS ILLUMINATION - Urban data experts discuss how new forms of city data make hidden patterns visible and public, illuminating access to knowledge, and how our knowledge institutions are responsible for the ways that ideas move and spread through a city. KNOWLEDGE AS ILLUMINATION - Cultural and knowl...
Jan 25, 2022•36 min
A series of ‘Illuminating Conversations’ with Place Intelligence explores the role of data in cities, in public institutions and how its role has changed with Covid-19 and the climate emergency. DATA AS ILLUMINATION - Urban data experts discuss how new forms of city data make hidden patterns visible and public, illuminating access to knowledge, and how our knowledge institutions are responsible for the ways that ideas move and spread through a city. KNOWLEDGE AS ILLUMINATION - Cultural and knowl...
Jan 25, 2022•34 min
The Maldives is synonymous with luxury holidays: the ultimate “Robinson Crusoe” island escape where you can be treated like royalty and step out of your busy lives. Over the span of 50 years, Maldivian tourism developed from humble beginnings to a place that now welcomes over one million tourists per year (almost double the country’s population), and the number of resorts is reaching close to the number of inhabited islands. However, obscured from tourists' eyes are complex realities of a popula...
Jan 20, 2022•57 min
As Nyoongar Country morphs into Yamatji Country, off the coast of the small port town of Geraldton in Western Australia, there lies an archipelago of 122 islands and coral reefs known as Houtmans Abrohlos. Home to Australia’s largest single species fishery, the Western Rock Lobster industry, the fishermen who drive this $500 million industry have grown their isolated community of colourful fibro shacks since the early 1900s—but times have never been harder. In recent years, the pandemic and a sh...
Jan 06, 2022•1 hr 4 min
As Nyoongar Country morphs into Yamatji Country, off the coast of the small port town of Geraldton in Western Australia, there lies an archipelago of 122 islands and coral reefs known as Houtmans Abrohlos. Home to Australia’s largest single species fishery, the Western Rock Lobster industry, the fishermen who drive this $500 million industry have grown their isolated community of colourful fibro shacks since the early 1900s—but times have never been harder. In recent years, the pandemic and a sh...
Jan 06, 2022•1 hr 29 min
This panel discussion explores ideas of safety, movement, surveillance, physical distancing, visibility and invisibility within Melbourne’s public spaces. Think Tank Moderator Nur Shkembi, artist, curator and PhD candidate, University of Melbourne, and Curatorial Advisory Group member for Who’s Afraid of Public Space?, is joined by esteemed local cultural contributors including Idil Ali, writer, performer, youth practitioner and community organiser; Antony Hamilton, Artistic Director, Chunky Mov...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 30 min
Tune in for a panel discussion hosted by Emerging Architects and Graduate Network (EmAGN) to hear emerging and established architects discussing future perspectives for young architects and designers looking to a brighter future in 2022.
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 28 min
The big challenges of our time such as climate change, biodiversity loss or social inequality are not directly visible and seem overwhelming for an individual to address. But all over Melbourne and Australia, there are people working away on tactics and solutions to make our cities more equitable and regenerative. From temporary events and activations to city-wide strategies, these actions collectively give us a glimpse of what ingredients we need to build our future city. In this conversation i...
Jan 05, 2022•52 min
What if we have enough vacant properties to house the 80,000 people on Victoria’s public housing waiting list? If you believe housing is a human right, this talk is for you. Renegade economist Karl Fitzgerald explains how the traditional methods of evaluating residential vacancy rates are inaccurate and favour investors. Urban geographer at the University of Melbourne Dr Kate Shaw weighs in on the economic, social, and cultural factors and incentives that cause property to be hoarded—and what po...
Jan 05, 2022•56 min
Crossing species lines and national borders, COVID-19 has swiftly foregrounded the interconnected state of all life, human and otherwise, illuminating the myriad ways human culture is entangled with and dependent upon the well-being of more-than-human ecologies. As relentless change and unpredictability become ‘the new norm’, how might those other worlds, beyond the human, help to envision possible futures that centre care, hope and collaborative resilience? And how might they help reimagine per...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 5 min
As Amazon and other logistics-based companies further establish themselves as household names, their increasingly automated operations continue to redefine our cities and our lives. Behind faceless big-box facades, vehicles, workers and robots follow intricate choreographies to ceaselessly circulate goods. In this talk, panel members will discuss how design can illuminate logistics—that largely opaque science of ‘moving stuff around'. When logistics networks break down, they become visible, and ...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 6 min
To celebrate the launch of MPavilion 2021, MPavilion 2021 architects Francesco Magnani and Traudy Pelzel of MAP studio (Venice) will be in conversation with MPavilion founder Naomi Milgrom AC, hosted by architect and much-loved host of Grand Designs Australia Peter Maddison. The talk will explore the minds, design and extraordinary story behind MPavilion 2021—the pavilion that will defy all pandemic setbacks to become the seventh iteration of Melbourne’s favourite cultural laboratory.
Nov 22, 2021•44 min
Join collective being for a series of guided meditations designed to orient you to the present moment, ground your feet on Country, and connect you to your own body, to those around you, and to the more-than-human world. Each meditation presents an invitation. In the second meditation of this series, you are invited to notice the ground underneath your feet, and the solidity and support provided by gravity and place. This is a meditative gesture of grounding and acknowledging. Each meditation is...
Nov 22, 2021•12 min
