Program of Forums
Saturday 9 May
GHOSTED SPACES – Prof. Gay McAuley and Dr. Paul Dwyer, critical writers on performance and Pam Brown, poet.
Wednesday 13 May
DESTITUTION & NIGHT SPACES – Dr. Brendan Stewart, artist.
Thursday 14 May
OPEN CONVERSATION - Caroline Baum, journalist and artist.
Friday 15 May
PERSPECTIVES ON ADDICTION AND IMAGINATION – Dr. Roman Danylak, media artist, Dr. Paul Sheehan, cultural critic and Dr. Chris Fleming, philosopher.
Saturday 16 May
MURDER AS PERFORMANCE – Assoc. Prof. Ian Maxwell, critical writers on performance and Dr. Sara Knox, novelist and critic.
Caroline Baum is a well-known journalist and broadcaster, presenter of Caroline Baum Talks 2 (Ovation) and Talking Books. Her photographs have been published in The Good Weekend magazine and she has had exhibitions at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and as part of Artscape at Byron Bay.
Pam Brown’s most recent book is True Thoughts (Salt Modern Poets, 2008). Another collection, Authentic Local, is due from Papertiger Media’s imprint, in June 2009. She was poetry editor for Overland from 1997-2002 and currently co-edits Jacket Magazine www.jacketmagazine.com. She keeps a blog http://thedeletions.blogspot.com
Dr. Roman Danylak has worked as actor, writer and director in film, theatre and multimedia for the past thirty years. Recently, he completed doctoral studies in interactive design at the Creativity and Cognition Studios, UTS. His interactive artwork, To be or not to be, based on Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, was exhibited in 2007 in Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum. He speaks regularly on art and technology at both local and international events. www.romandanylak.com
Dr. Paul Dwyer has extensive experience in youth and community theatre and is the Company dramaturg for Version 1.0, with whom his most recent production is The Bougainville Photoplay Project. He lectures in Performance Studies at Sydney University.
Dr. Sara Knox is the author of Murder: a Tale of Modern American Life (1998) and her ongoing scholarly research is concerned with death, violence and representation. Her novel The Orphan Gunner (2007) was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Literature Prize.
Dr. Chris Fleming is a lecturer in Humanities at the University of Western Sydney, with research interests in philosophy, literature and the history of science. His most recent book is Rene Girard: Violence and Mimesis (2004) and he is working on a study of drugs, addiction and writing.
Prof. Gay McAuley is an Honorary Professor in the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney, where she established Performance Studies as an interdisciplinary centre and pioneered the application of ethnographic methodologies to the study of rehearsal process. Her books include Space in Performance (University of Michigan Press, 1999), which was awarded the Rob Jordan Prize by the Australasian Drama Studies Association, and Unstable Ground (2006), a collection of essays on Performance and the Politics of Place.
Assoc. Prof. Ian Maxwell is the author of Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip Hop Down Under Comin' Upper (2003), and has published widely on the performing arts. He lectures in Performance Studies at Sydney University and is currently President of the Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies and Vice-President of Performance Studies International.
Dr. Paul Sheehan is the author of Modernism, Narrative and Humanism (Cambridge, 2002) and is currently completing a book on Violence and Aesthetics. He is a lecturer in the English Department at Macquarie University.
Dr. Brendon Stewart has been a senior lecturer in Social Ecology and Psychology at the University of Western Sydney. He is also a painter. In recent years, he has been assisting at a refuge for homeless men in Sydney, and was involved in the last city census of the homeless.
