projects PhD Archives

24/11/202006/04/2021

New Materialisms SIG: Feeling success in project teams

New Materialism SIG: Feeling success in project teams. Bicycles Create Change.com 24th November 2020. — Image: Matador Network

Regular readers of this blog know I am a co-convener (with the amazing Dr Sherilyn Lennon) of Griffith Uni’s New Materialisms (NM) Special Interest Group (SIG). Each month we meet to discuss NM theory, methodology, practice and application. Each month we do readings, share ideas and invite an NM researcher to present an aspect of their work.

This month we were delighted to host Patricia Ni Ivor from RMIT, Melbourne. Patricia is working in Project Management and is looking at what NM might bring to her PhD research.

It was not only great about her workplace and research but also her current experience of being new to NM approaches. Patricia also shared some diagrams she had made about her thinking (OMG – they were incredibly detailed and thorough!). Visually representing the complexity, range and scope of her thinking really showed the evolution of her understanding and the connections she’s made between scholars, theories and key themes in her study. Super impressive!

As part of her presentation, Patricia also ran the group through a self-inquiry activity which was a unique and thought-provoking experience.

This session was our last NM SIG for the year and Patricia’s session was a wonderful way to come together, share NM ideas, but also experience a shared mindfulness activity in a way that was productive, unique and meaningful. We had much to discuss and take away to think about.

A wonderful way to finish off this year’s NM SIG program!

Title

Feeling success in project teams: Travelling from the domain ruled by the supreme God-of-Things to the fresh air of Sensation and the Ineffable.

Presenter

Patricia’s extended career spans teaching, journalism, media education, public & industrial policy reform and project management. From time to time she has lectured in Film & Media Studies and in Project Management. Her doctoral studies are applied research in the development of soft-skills in project teams in the technology and construction industries, especially emotional capabilities, empathy and resilience.

Abstract

My doctoral research is investigating whether an ancient yogic practice of Self-inquiry, repurposed for the 21^st century and focused on feelings, would work in project teams and, if so, under what conditions? Unlike mindfulness or other meditative tools, Self-inquiry can be practiced in teams, is swift in producing results and builds emotional capabilities, empathy and resilience. As a process tool, it has the capacity to be embedded in organisational systems and procedures – just what the project management industry wants and needs but is unsure how to develop.

Seeking a theoretical underpinning that did not skew the research has been difficult: organisational development and psychology, emotional intelligence and other emotional development/regulation theories, neuro-science, meditation and eastern philosophy, social science, knowledge and sense-making etc. each have value, but none really fits the research purpose.

Earlier this year, Janis Hanley introduced me to New Materialism and the concept of affect as used by Deleuze and Guattari, drawn from Spinoza’s Ethics and the work of Henry Bergson. Not only did this seem to fit the theoretical paradigm of Self-inquiry (Spinoza’s synergy with eastern spiritual traditions and Bergson’s notions of consciousness) but their emphasis on embodiment or somatic inquiry reflects the yogic basis of Self-inquiry and more recent theory in social science, psychology and physical movement studies in art and wellbeing.

I am still new to the area and the literature, so this SIG session will trace my journey from hard-nosed Project Management through softer social and emotional skills to non-dual ideas of matter and consciousness. The attached readings are ones I have found useful so far. I’m looking forward to our discussion of ‘applied’ research in New Materialism.

Readings

Rice, J. (2008). The New “New”: Making a Case for Critical Affect Studies. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 94(2), 200-212. doi:10.1080/00335630801975434

Rice (2008) The New “New”Download

Stanley, K. (2017). Affect and Emotion: James, Dewey, Tomkins, Damasio, Massumi, Spinoza. In D. R. Wehrs & T. Blake (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of affect studies and texutal criticism (pp. 97-112): International Publishing, Cham.

Stanley (2017) Affect and Emotion Download

26/10/202007/06/2021

New Materialisms SIG: October Writing Party!

As many readers know, October is my birthday month. It is also a busy time for most universities. So for this month’s New Materialisms Special Intrest Group (SIG), I floated the idea of having a writing party. Instead of adding pressure to read and discuss, I thought it’d be a good time to pause, take stock, and to put into playful practice some of the NM ideas and approaches we’ve been discussing thoughout the year in our SIG.

It might seem a little weird to have a Writing Party for your birthday and not a bike-themed party but seeing as though my PhD research is on bikes – it was a win-win for me!

Woohoo! Writing Party!!!

New Materialisms SIG: October Writing Party! Bicycles Create Change.com 26th October 2020.

Writing Party Invite

Here is the NM SIG Writing Party invite I sent out to NM SIG members:

Are you feeling overworked and lonely? Has your enthusiasm for writing taken a hit lately?

Are you struggling to get those paragraphs perfect and on the page?

Then it’s time to PARTY!

At our next NM SIG, we shift the focus from reading to writing and you are invited to join our 2-hour Writing Party (details and link included here – it was a closed event, so no details here on the blog – sorry!).

With a continuing focus on the feminist New Materialists, we welcome your ideas/musings/partially formed paragraphs and feedback for others in our group.

Bring along a partially formed paragraph for sharing and feedback.

This Writing Party will also include guided writing warm-ups and research-focused timed writings as well as some time to chat, reflect and share as much or as little as you want.

The aim is to help you get over the writing hump and back into the flow…

No matter what your current research project is, this session will help reinvigorate your writing passion!

We look forward to seeing you there!

So what did we do?

We had a great time!…..And we wrote heaps!

It was a small, but dedicated crowd who were up for writing and sharing NM ideas and practices.

We had 2 hours and I wanted to make sure we had time to write some new material, share some writing we had already done and have time to discuss and process writing styles and production.

I opened with each person saying why there were here for the sessions and what they hoped to achieve,

Then we did a 10 min writing warm-up activity I call Embodied writers in the here and now. I developed this as a warm up task for my own working days a while back and have been using it with others, colleagues, study groups and writing retreats since. It is a generative and useful warm up that gets the juices flowing and there is always something interesting to talk about that comes out of it.

We then shared a piece of our own writing that we were proud of. this is a great activity to do to boost confidence and be exposed to different types of writing and processing. I enjoyed hearing other people’s ideas on why it was meaningful to them and what they learnt from/while writing it.

Then, we did a word sprint activity looking at Research Tentacles to get thinking about vocab, fluency, collocations and expression.

A 15 mins Rolling Research Activity followed the vocab discussion up nicely. Here we wrote down our answer to the question; What is a current research-writing-tension for you? We then took time to read other people’s answers and add some suggestions and ideas on how to shift or move forward with these. This was a great way to pool our experiences and resources and get some great ideas we would not have thought of by ourselves.

We then did a Matter Matters sprint. Using a piece of our own writing, we discussed , provoked, challenged and layered how matter matters in our research. We then did a quiet 10 mins written reflection to excavate if anything had shifted or moved as a result of dong the activity-discussion-writing.

For our last activity, we opened the floor to a Partial Writing discussion. This is where you share piece of unfinished writing you are currently working (selection or except) for those who want to get some feedback or ideas on what and how to move forward.

I had a ball! It was so great to have designated time to write, share, discuss, laugh and learn -we so rarely create opportunities like this – where there is no pressure or expectation, yet you can still experiment with writing ideas and prose.

I think it is very important to celebrate ALL types of writing and to keep writing fun. After all, sitting at a desk for years writing up formal academic research would be a challenge for any one – so it was nice to stop for a breather and to play and have some fun with writing.

06/10/202024/11/2020

Worlding: Everything with(in) a twist

Doing a PhD is usually seen as a good thing. But sometimes it can cause perceived or actual tension for yourself or others. Recently, this happened to me and it served as a great reminder that often (as with most things in life), things are not always what they seem and that everything is always-already with(in) a twist. Here’s what happened in 100 words. Enjoy, NG.

Well-meaning advice for my first-time BBQ: ‘Maybe don’t mention your PhD’. Gloomy backyard introductions and I only remember Mouse and Skipper. I stand awkwardly. Drinking. Tattoos pour down legs and arms, scraggly beer strained beards and black heavy metal T-shirts. Smoking. My trendy hat feels too tight. Disappearings. A huge brown mastiff watches half-naked kids fight. Reappearings. I make a joke that falls flat. Eating. Jonno tells me his secret fishing spots. Teasing. Raucous stories of youthful antics. Laughing. On departure: sweaty hugs and a take-home food pack. Over the balcony, Big Dan yells ‘Best of luck with ya research!’

26/09/202023/11/2020

New Materialisms SIG: A/P Tom Reynolds – Multimodality: digital video and the materiality of academic writing.

For nearly 2 years now, I have been the co-convenor (with Dr Sherilyn Lennon) of Griffth University’s New Materialisms (NM) Special interest Group (SIG). We meet each month to read, discuss and experiment with New Materialisms approaches in teaching, learning and research. It is also the framing I am using for my bikes-for-education PhD project.

For this months’ New Materialisms session, we were delighted to host our first international presenter Assoc. Prof. Thomas Reynolds (Dept. of Writing Studies, Uni of Minnesota).

I met Tom after I emailed him following a session he did for an international online teaching conference. Despite the time differences (it was hosted by an Israeli Uni so the international timezone shift was brutal for Aussie attendees – Tom’s session was on at 10 pm Brisbane time), I still attended his session, but they ran out of time for questions. I reached out to him and we got email chatting and I invited him to (re)present for our NM SIG. And he said yes!

Title: Multimodality: digital video and the materiality of academic writing.

Tom’s research interests include critical theories of writing instruction, histories of popular literacy, and intersections of literacy and cultural movements. He is currently writing about multimodality in writing instruction. Tom teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in writing and literacy studies. His classes typically write in and study current media.

Abstract

I have been thinking about how to set new ground for the teaching and learning of writing through a lens of multimodality. In particular, in addition to asking my students to read and write traditional academic texts, I’ve asked them to make group digital videos that advocate for issues that are important to them.

With new materialist ideas, I’m interested in helping students see how their work on these projects might involve engagement with both discursive and non-discursive elements. The attached readings explore writing through a non-discursive and, in Cooper’s case, post-humanist framework.

The ideas for this project are exploratory for me at this stage and will hopefully lead to an article.

What we did

This session was an engaging, fun and productive exploration of Tom’s current project on multimodality, literacy digital video and the materiality of academic writing.

We discussed the two articles and collated some standout concepts (see image) then had a lively conversation following Tom’s presentation about many things, including: who holds power on campus, how to (affectively?) tracing emotional responses to places/space, going on a ‘sound diet’, habituated bodily responses to sound, and territorialising/mapping campus s/p/places as a class/student activity – wow!

It was a real delight to enter a completely different world …that of Tom’s class practice. Each session we get stretched and pulled in different ways and it really helps us to stay open-minded and flexible in our thinking and experimentation.

The discussions were animate, fun and productive – it was a real pleasure to flex our intellectual muscles and share the ideas and lines of flights that emerge for each of us from the conversations, reading and links to our research.

I found Tom’s session and his work to be inspiring and generative – I’d love to be a student in his class!

It also gave me a lot to think about how I teach and holding space for others to tell stories, narratives and learnings via different modalities – a very stimulating session!

Other takeaways included:

How do our habits of thinking and paying attention help us (and our students) transform our writing/understanding/being?
How to give students agency to choose their own passion, to fuel their multimodal creations which (hopefully) leads to better “products” outcomes, but also creative processes leading up to those endpoints?

Readings:

Ceraso, S. (2014). (re)educating the senses: Multimodal listening, bodily learning, and the composition of sonic experiences. College English, 77(2), 102-123.

Cooper, M. M. (2019). Enchanted writing. (pp. 19-44). University of Pittsburgh Press.

Ceraso (2019) (Re)educating the senses Download

Cooper (2015) Enchanted Writing Download

30/08/202001/02/2021

New Materialisms SIG: Janis Hanley – Culture, milieu, and territories

As many readers know, I am using Feminist New Materialisms (FNM) as my framing for my bicycles-for-education PhD project. FNM is a wonderfully rich and challenging approach to be working with. To help deepen my understandings of NM, this year I have been working as the co-convenor (alongside the amazing Dr Sherilyn Lennon) of Griffith’s Uni New Materialisms Special Interest Group (SIG). Each month, we meet to discuss NM approaches, readings ad applications. We do writing and process activities to help activate and stretch our NM understandings and have an invited guest present to broaden our ideas for working with NMs. Click here to see our other New Materialisms sessions.

This post shares some highlights from this month’s NM meeting where we had Janis Hanley (Social Science PhD candidate) presenting on Milieu, Territory, Atmosphere, Agency & Culture.

See more incredible work by Janis at her Local Yarns blog.

New Materialisms SIG: Janis Hanley - Culture, milieu, and territories. Bicycles Create Change.com 30th August 2020. — Image: Digital Rhetoric Collaborative

Janis Hanley – Milieu, Territory, Atmosphere, Agency & Culture.

Abstract: For some time now I’ve been exploring ways to conceptualise organisational culture, and safety culture in relation to organisations as assemblages – both for my PhD project and assisting in WHS research. The ideas I’m currently playing with are milieu and affective atmospheres. This work is for a journal paper presenting a case study of safety at a regional coal fired powerplant (scheduled to be phased out), based on ethnographic interviews conducted by Dr Tristan Casey and myself, about a year ago.

Tristan, a workplace, health and safety expert at Griffith, led the project, and is the co-author. The ideas around this paper are being presented here to test it out as a work in progress, and as a practical application. I hope it will help stimulate discussion around these concepts, and be practical for you in terms of considering your own research. Do these concepts resonate with your research? What new things might they reveal?

The Readings

Wise (2010) Home, Territory and Identity Download

Bennett (2005) The Agency of Assemblages and the North American Blackout Download

What we did: the SIG meeting

This meeting was really great. In a meeting prior to the session, Janis and I discussed the abstract and how best to organise the session. We ended up pivoting from the original abstract and instead, Janis ran us though some of her milleu work from her current PhD project.

This was a really interesting session (aren’t they all!?!). Janis took us on a creative and analytical exploration of milieu, territory, atmosphere, agency & culture. Using some written and visual excerpts from her current PhD research-in-progress on the historical Queensland textile industry, Janis provoked us to consider how milieu, chi, concepts of ‘home’ and atmosphere resonated with us and in our research.

Stand out aspects of this discussion were divergent responses to a piano, political graffiti in a factory and participant appreciation of Janis’s diagrams that showed the ‘bite of elliptical surfboards’.

We also did a number of individual and collaborative activities that helped activate and draw out some points for discussion. I found these to very revealing and generative. You never know what to example or what might emerge – but it is always something unusual and interesting. I took a lot away from this session and it gave me much to think about in regard to how atmosphere, milieu and conceptions of ‘home’ feature in my own work and life. Very provocative.

We also did a writing activity. This is one of my favourite things to do I n the SIG as it really helps me try and apply and explain NM considerations in writing, which is a critical skill I need for writing up my dissertation – so any help, practice and feedback I can get with this is very welcomed.

The writing activity we did was for us to write for 10 mins and then share and discuss interesting aspects that emerged. Below was our stimulus for this task.

Writing Activity:
Think about the layer of milieu or territory in your research.
Write a 100 word or so autoethnographic piece inspired by your musings.

Below are some snapshots of our discussions and a draft of this session’s writing activity.

25/07/202027/08/2020

Bicycles help the Pascua Yaqui community fight diabetes

I am always looking for stories where bicycles create positive community change. Inclusive bike-focused programs that support First Nations and minority groups is a special interest for this blog.

Previously, I have posted on programs that increase bike use, access and participation for Indigenous Australians such as:

This week, I came across a US community-based project working at the forefront of 3 critical intersecting issues: diabetes, first nations (Native American community) health and using bicycling to mitigate chronic health issues.

This project works with the Pascua Yaqui people in the US. Obesity and diabetes is a major individual and community health issue in many communities – and the Diabetes Community Empowerment Project is using bicycles to help address this issue. What an awesome project!

Who are they?

This initiative is part of Native Exercise Empowerment Project.

Since 2012, the Diabetes Community Empowerment Project has been working with the Native American community helping them move towards better health. This community sees a high incidence of diabetes and obesity and DCEP empower native people to exercise more and be role models for each other.

The programs work in resource poor communities by removing the barriers between people and the healthier, happier versions of themselves.

Starting out

The project began when James Stout (DCEP Executive Director) was training in Tucson Arizona. At the time, he was making a living as a cyclist. Having spent time riding through the reservation and working with nonprofit outside of the US, he noticed the high rate of diabetes among Native American people and wondered if there was anything he could do to help.

As someone who lives with diabetes, James was motivated to share the joy, and health, he found in riding his bike. Taking a clapped out station wagon and as many old bikes and helmets, as it could fit, James took time out from his PhD I began to work on the reservation in order to better understand the barriers between Native people and better diabetes management.

Although access to medication is an issue in many Native American communities, a lack of access to exercise and education is often equally dangerous. Through working with the healthcare team on the reservation, the program engages people with diabetes and encouraged them to try cycling with the goal of completing a El Tour de Tucson event.

3 years after it started, each of the initial riders have returned to serve as a mentor and bought friends and family with them. By 2016 the project has seen over 100 participants finished their goal event, thousands of pounds have been lost and blood glucose management has seen drastic improvement.

DCEP Mission

To research and implement peer mentored, exercise based lifestyle interventions in resource poor diabetes communities. Focusing on goal events, we aim to use community based education and exercise programs to empower people to live healthier and happier lives as well as to be changemakers in their own communities.

Moving forward

The DCEP website has not been updated in a while, so I hope this project is still ongoing! Even if it is not, the project is a great example of an how bicycles can be used to improve indiviviual and community health and well-being.

It also serves as a reminder that we need a broader, more inclusive methods of providing specialist, community-focused responses to support the needs of First Nations communities and minority groups.

All images and some content of this post sourced from DCEP.

10/07/202010/08/2020

Worlding: Coffee Break (Away)

Why is gender a focus for my bike research? As a female-body working, being and living in the world, how could it not be integral to how I experience the world? It is the only point of reference I have – and even when I am okay with it, others are/might not be okay with it. Here a recent example in 100 words.

While studying with coffee and a muffin, a passing, feeble man tells me to watch what I eat If I want to keep my figure. Aged care fragility meets learned compassion rising. Humanity blooms as I tell him to fuck off – in my thoughts – I think – I hope. The weight of intellect is my principal concern: criticism, expectations, conferral. Momentarily, I invest in frustration and fabrication and feel slightly better. Later, on my bike, I ride even faster. Burning the kms. Burning the candle. Burning the books. Burning the calories. Take that thesis. Take that old man. I ride on.

30/06/202025/08/2020

New Materialisms SIG: Workplace harassment and teacher identity

As long-time readers of this blog know, along with Dr Sherilyn Lennon, I co-convene Griffith University’s New Materialism Special Interest Group (SIG). New Materialisms (NM) is an emerging post-qualitative research approach that has a significant take-up in education, queer and gender studies, environmental science and arts-based disciplines in particular, but is gaining traction more widely as well.

In our last session, we discussed 3 papers and one of the most essential questions plaguing NM: What is ‘new’ about New Materialisms? and then had an awesome presentation by Dr Natalie Lazaroo (Griffith Uni, Theatre Studies).

This month, we had a mix of three stimuli for the discussion. This was followed by a very moving presentation about a project exploring school workplace sexual harassment and the impact on teacher identity.

New Materialisms SIG: Workplace harassment and teacher identity. Bicycles Create Change.com 31st — Image by Franz Marc: Fighting Forms

Presentation: Workplace harassment and teacher identity

Our presenter had just submitted her Griffith EPS Master’s thesis two days before this meeting, so we were very grateful for her time.

In this session, she shared some insights, ‘data’ and narrative moments from her latest research project which was an exploration of sexual harassment on teacher identity.

Now that her Masters had been submitted, the researcher was interested in feedback from the group on what resonates and how she might be able to build the project into a PhD using a New Materialisms lens.

As a starting point, X was keen to explore how the sexual harassment complaint has its own agency.

As always, it was a very generative and thought-provoking session.

The presentation blew up away and gave us much to think about.

We applauded the bravery, resilience and strength that underpinned this work.

This presentation focused on the impact of sexual harassment on teacher identity and, in so doing, opened up conversations around gendered harassment in institutional settings. The aim is to lift the curtain on the unacknowledged, misunderstood and often overlooked. These discussions offer insights into the ways that identity, power and culture interrelate and operate in institutional settings and how to shed light on the gendered nature of workplace harassment from a position that is often silenced. Here, feelings of powerlessness, critical reflexivity, and scholarly reflection were used to interrogate construction of institutionalised norms and examine how language, subjectivity, and power-relations impact on gender.

This session resonated very strongly with SIG members as it honours the insider’s perspective of the social complexities and challenges many women face in institutional workplaces.

It was certainly very moving – and left us all with much to consider – individually and collectively.

New Materialisms Reading/Discussion

For this meeting we had a mix of 3 stimuli.

First was a Taylor & Ivinson’s (2013) editorial for a journal special which was quoted from in the May meeting and flagged for the SIG to follow up. We also had a reading by Gamble, Hanan & Nail (2019) from the last meeting that helps trace the NM origins, epistemological developments and contested space. Lastly, we used a 30 min YouTube video of Iris van de Turin in which she discusses diffractive reading and asks questions about the spatiotemporality of diffractive reading: where and when does diffraction happen in reading processes?

We used the readings and our own knowledge and experiences to explore our central question of: ‘What lines of flight emerge for you?’

We used this key question to pick at the seams of NM and how we can engage with, and apply, New Materialist methodologies. Here is a sneak peak at some of our machinations.

Session resources

Editorial: Taylor, C. A., & Ivinson, G. (2013). Material feminisms: New directions for education. Gender and education 25(6), 995-670.

Reading: Gamble, C. N., Hanan, J. S., & Nail, T. (2019). What Is New Materialism?. Angelaki, 24(6), 111-134.

Youtube Video: Iris van der Tuin – Reading diffractive reading: were and when does diffraction happen?

08/06/202001/06/2021

New Materialisms SIG: Vulcana Circus – Stronghold

New Materialism SIG: Vulcana Women’s Circus - Stronghold. Bicycles Create Change.com 8th June 2020. — Image: Vulcana Circus

Along with Dr Sherilyn Lennon, I co-convene Griffith University’s New Materialism Special Interest Group (SIG). New Materialisms (NM) is an emerging post-qualitative research approach that has a significant take up in education, queer and gender studies, environmental science and arts-based disciplines in particular, but is gaining traction more widely as well.

The aim of this SIG is to provide a supportive space for GIER students, ECRs, mid-career and more senior Academics to explore, discuss, experiment and share complex and emerging post-qualitative ideas, methods and approaches.

Our SIG meets once a month and we have over 30 members Australia-wide. For the first 2020 session, I presented some of my African bicycle fieldwork. But then COVID-19 lockdown happened, so we had a month break. This is our first session back – and we were all delighted to be back in action again!

For this session, we discussed 3 papers and one of the most essential questions plaguing NM What is ‘new’ about New Materialisms? and then had a presentation by Dr Natalie Lazaroo (Griffith Uni, Theatre Studies).

The Readings

The first two papers (Monforte, 2018; Banerjee & Blaise, 2013) are advocating for NM as a new way of thinking about research and the other one is pushing back saying it’s all been done before and there is nothing new to see here (Petersen, 2018).

For this SIG we had 3 readings

Monforte, J. (2018). What is new in new materialism for a newcomer? Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 10(3), 378-390.
Banerjee, B., & Blaise, M. (2013). There’s something in the air: Becoming-with research practices. Cultural Studies – Critical Methodologies, 13(4), 240-245. doi:10.1177/1532708613487867
Petersen, E. B. (2018). ‘Data found us’: A critique of some new materialist tropes in educational research. Research in Education, 101(1), 5-16. doi:10.1177/0034523718792161

In the session, we provide a spectrum: on one end ‘nothing new’ and on the other end ‘everything is new’

We invited participants to take a position on this spectrum and be ready to justify your answer/position. People could positions themselves into a any camp. And once people had contributed their ideas to the spectrum, we talked about the positions and the reasons why we had taken that stance. We used the readings to inform our opinions, ideas from elsewhere/other scholars, experience and other ideas to help explain why we chose that point and to better understand where other people were currently positioned.

The aim of this discussion was to plumb what’s new about NM and see what makes sense to the group.

Following this discussion, we had a presentation from Dr Natalie Lazaroo.

Dr Natalie Lazaroo – Vulcana Circus: Stronghold

In this session, Dr Lazaroo returned to her PhD work (two years ago) to untangle the mess to make new discoveries. She reflected on her early methodology and locates a poem titles ‘Expressions of longing’ which she wrote in response to NM SIG provocations.

This return poem captures the essence of articulations that emerged during her artistic collaboration over a 4-month period of fieldwork with Vulcana Women’s Circus to create a community performance called Stronghold, which involved people with disabilities.

Natalie’s presentation was a real highlight – hearing about her work and research highlighted many NM tensions and opportunities. The group was blown away when she shared her poem which was evocative, agential and very moving. The conversation that followed was interesting, insightful and unexpected.

We all left this session deep in thought about these NM approaches might relate to our own work and in awe of the amazing work Natalie and Vulcana does.

I can’t wait to see more from both!

Stronghold

Stonghold was a project run in conjunction with Horizons Respite and Vulcana Women’s Circus. This partnership 16-week workshop program culminated with a final performance called Stronghold which engaged 10 Access Arts members. During this project, participants had the opportunity to learn skills puppetry, performance, circus and theatre. Stronghold was performed as part of Access Arts 30th Anniversary celebration at Brisbane Powerhouse.

Vulcana

Vulcana is a Brisbane-based circus that was established in 1995 to counter a major discrepancy between women’ and men’s experience of circus, both in training and in the expectation of how and what they perform. Vulcana now welcomes women, trans and non-binary gendered adults, kids and teens of all genders, to its inclusive circus training, performance making projects, and community engagement programs. It is an incubator for new, emerging and professional artists who have developed their passion as practitioners, performers and teachers in this art form that offers everybody a place to explore their uniqueness and their creativity.  Vulcana respects diversity and the feminist principles of equity and inclusion which are central to all our work and the starting point for engagement with students, participants, communities and artists.

04/05/202013/11/2020

Worlding: Research Da(y)ze

People keep asking how my PhD is going. It’s a legitimate and infuriating inquiry. How to explain the research da(y)ze? Here’s one in 100 words.

It was never going to be easy: this spinning hyper-real simulacra imaginarium. Breathe in. Passionate tears during compost therapy. Breathe out. A research assistant job comes through. Vegetarian dumplings. Whispers of theoretical (in)security. Omissions, occlusions, occasions. Frangipani’s first buds. A maelstrom of attunement as I grip my red pen. Personifying landscapes, fast-forwarding childhoods, (re)working images, terraforming heartbreaks. Screaming all the while. Riding wild horses. An unoriginal miscellany. Embolden by Kathleen Stewart and my broadcasting sister’s birthday, I take solace in Manu’s grey bicycle T-shirt. Cheers all round. When all else fails, winter dog walks and melted cheese toasties.