Stories from the Crevice Communities

The Murrumbidgee River from ‘The Rocks’ in Wagga Wagga. Pic by Bidgee/Creative Commons.
The Stories from the Crevice Communities Symposium was held in Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia, December 7-8, 2022, with associated activities in the days before and afterwards. The Symposium took place in-person on the Charles Sturt University campus (Building 21) and online via Zoom. One associated event – a live multimedia performance by Jacqui O’Reilly – took place at the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery. All of these events were free and open to the public.
The PDF version of the original program is available here, but note that there were some last-minute changes.
Symposium presenters
Dr Bärbel Ullrich On altered books – the use and interplay of text and images
Altered books as a container of images, text and ideas that have trace and memory.
Diane Cass Finding Light in Unimaginable Darkness
During the early months of 2019 I received a life-changing diagnosis. What made this particularly uncommon, was the fact that all my children also received the same diagnosis. We very quickly found out that the disease is degenerative and incurable…
Working in mixed media with a focus on stitch, textiles and paper…
Frank Prem Ida: Searching For The Jazz Baby
Ida Pender, jazz dancer, associate and (ultimately) the 3rd and final wife of the notorious gangster Lesley ‘Squizzy’ Taylor in 1920’s Melbourne, will be revealed as a larger than life historical character in her own right…
This electro-acoustic sound & moving image performance is an immersive and reflexive time based experience and connects to the work of the same name exhibited at the Crevice Communities Exhibition 2021 …
Dr Jared van Duinen Worldbuilding as Historical Research: a Method for ‘Creative Histories’
This presentation mines the crevice between academic non-fiction history and fictional worldbuilding and explores ways in which the theory and method of academic history can be combined with creative methods and practice …
Jock Cheetham Behind “Running in to grief”
When someone suffers deep loss, they are left between the living and the dead. They become lodged between reticent neighbours and troubled strangers; without foundation, falling. The lucky ones may land in some barren crevice, searching for meaning …
Some art takes place in small, little-known, interdependent communities – crevices. Internationally, expanded cinema has flourished in a series of interconnected crevices but expanded cinema involves technology and live performance.
Lynette Callaghan Mental Health-Creating Program that Integrates Text within the Art Image
This investigation was initiated in response to a need, identified during the COVID-19 pandemic, for the provision of life enriching visual arts experiences to facilitate member well-being …
Owen Lyons Background to arts practice
Owen Lyons is a Wiradjuri artist and resident of Wagga Wagga. This talk gives an outline of his life story and how he became a visual artist…
Within Australia, art shapes understandings of and connections to place. Art defines individual and collective identities, especially in rural spaces, where people are defined in relation to land…
Roxanne Bodsworth My life as an Australian sheep farmer Irish-Australian poet
It was while hand-rearing seventeen merino lambs, each colour-coded with cat collars to tell me what formula they were on, that I was screaming “this is not what I want to be doing with my life!” Hence the decision to return to study…
Sam Bowker Golden Shadows: The Making of “The Alchemist’s Jar”
“The Alchemist’s Jar” (2022-2023) is a new shadow theatre concert with live music – original, historic, and contemporary – inspired by the storytelling traditions of Egyptian medieval shadow puppetry (khayal al-zill in Arabic, or…
Sandra Stewart Reflecting on process
Reflection invokes images of Monet paintings with floating water lilies, a peaceful meditative scenario. It can also be chaotic, scary, and a challenge for learners who wish to create art but do not have art’s building blocks…
Tracy Sorensen Can subaltern organs speak?
The ecological crises confronting the world today are supported by a way of viewing the material substance of the world as both infinitely exploitable and lacking in agency and value of its…