writer & thinker
“Artists are in a constant state of precarity and crisis. For many of us, there’s nothing to return to, nothing to recover. The status quo is already broken. It’s an empty bowl – with a smear of racism, sexism and ableism to boot.”
I wrote about unemployment and the pandemic for the Victorian Council of Social Service’s #MyCorona series.
“Neither sex nor solidarity is automatic. It doesn’t just emanate, naturally, from the body.”
I’m in The Monthly today with a piece about sex on screen in Tanya Saracho’s series Vida.
“For First Nations women, the apocalypse was already here. It’s part of the inheritance.”
For The Guardian, I wrote a preview article on Dear Australia, Playwriting Australia’s monologue marathon which runs 2-5 July 2020, and how it speaks to a hunger for rupture.
On Thursday, I’ll be chatting about online and offline communities with Pauline Vetuna and Huna Amweero in a live event hosted by Areej Nur. It’s part of BLEED, a new festival from Arts House and Campbelltown Arts Centre. The talk is via Zoom so you can attend from anywhere in the world but you need to register.
The Virtual Co-presence of the Internet
Thu 2 July 2020
12 noon – 1 pm
live online event – free – booking required
Take a look at the rest of the BLEED program too – there’s a lot of interesting stuff happening. I’m one of the artists in residence for Assembly of the Future there too which I’m pretty pumped for.
Finally it’s launch day!
Underfoot presents four virtual audio tours through Footscray’s past. Liz and I bring an intimate lens to local history as we wander the streets and the archives looking for people like us: queers, migrants, radicals and artists. There are some big conversations about capitalism, nationalism and settler nativism, as well as some finely aged gossip.
Each track comes with a map, transcript, photos and notes so you can either explore these places in real life (observing social distancing!) or just enjoy the stories while staying home. You can even dive into some historical research yourself if you’re so inclined.
Here’s a little sex and dating story I wrote for MTV about polyamory in lockdown.
My second playlist for Peril magazine’s You Don’t Sound Asian project explores music from around the Sinosphere: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and beyond.
“Unlike the pandemic, the playlist doesn’t have a case definition or an epicentre. It’s just an endless filament of sound, the connections between the tracks both tenuous and elemental. It’s as open-ended as Chineseness could be.”
Have a listen – and check out my other playlist, Teacup in a Storm, as well.
In response to the lack of diversity in Australian arts criticism, I recently created a spreadsheet so editors can easily access a wide pool of critics.
It’s not a curated list, so any critic can add themselves via this Google Form and I’ve now also created a second form so editors can add their contact details and pitch guidelines.
You can view the spreadsheet here (the first tab is critics, the second is editors). Go pitch!
I’ve created a spreadsheet of Australian critics in response to the lack of diversity in criticism. You can add yourself via this Google Form.
Hopefully it’s a useful resource for artists, venues, publicists and commissioning editors to access a wider pool of critics. You can view the spreadsheet here. Please share with all your critically-minded mates.
“I do speak Mandarin. But I know when white people say ‘ni hao’ to me in Australia, it’s not intended as hello in Chinese – it’s intended as hello in chink.”
I wrote this article for HuffPost Australia in honour of chef Sarah Tiong’s masterful move in that Triple M interview last week.
