Annette Carmichael is an award-winning choreographer and dance artist based in Western Australia with community engagement at the core of her work. She joins Scotia to discuss The Stars Descend, an ambitious and inspiring performance work that consists of five chapters, crafted with and for five different communities in the south-west of Western Australia in partnership with renowned eco-restoration project, Gondwana Link. Driven by the desire to inspire climate hope and action, the performances were staged in outdoor settings across Gondwana Link’s 1000 kilometre ecological pathway, with each of the five communities presenting a chapter responding to the extraordinary biodiversity of the region.The Stars Descend music appears in this episode courtesy of Annette Carmichael Projects: Sound design by Simon Walsh, Dave Mann, Andy O’Neil, Azariah Felton and Jean Michel Maujean, The Stars Descend, Annette Carmichael Projects, 2023. Track compiled and mastered by Azariah Felton.LINKSGondwana LinkThe Stars Descend at Heartland JourneysRadio National interview with Malgana woman, Janine Oxenham, choreographer and star of The Stars DescendThe Stars Descend Highlights Video‘Strong Like a Karri’. Behind the scenes video of The Stars Descend: Chapter Three, Porongurup.The Stars Descend: Chapter 1 (Wooditjup Margaret River), Full Performance The Stars Descend: Chapter 2 (Northcliffe), Full PerformanceThe Stars Descend: Chapter 3 (Porongurup), Full PerformanceAnnette Carmichael ProjectsFilm: Breathing Life Into Boodja Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Margaret Moreton is Executive Director of the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR) and leads the work of AIDR to develop and share knowledge and learning to support a disaster resilient Australia. Margaret joins Scotia to talk about the work of AIDR and the importance of building a collaborative approach to how we plan for and respond to disasters. She shares the story of her first understanding of the importance of community and collaboration from her childhood growing up in rural Australia and how this has informed her life and work. This, along with her experiences during the 2003 Canberra fires and the 2009 Victorian bushfires, motivated Margaret’s journey into community-based research into disaster recovery and resilience and what has now become an ongoing commitment to building capacity and improving resilience outcomes for Australian communities. We also hear about the upcoming AIDR conference (August 23 - 24), the first to be delivered under Margaret’s leadership, and how this year’s program is enhancing the inclusion of diverse voices and new platforms including a dedicated focus on creative recovery for the first time.Notes: Australian Disaster Resilience Conference, 2023AIDR Knowledge HubClimate Change and Social Capital: Professor Daniel AldrichNatural Hazards Research Australia Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hard Place / Good Place is a project developed by the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum following a devastating storm that swept through the region in June 2021. It was thoughtfully designed in collaboration with the fEEL lab at the University of New South Wales as a way to work with young people in the region aged 15 to 25 to give voice to their experience as part of the recovery process. The work focusses on lived experiences of being in a ‘hard place’ or a ‘good place’ through a collection of personal and community stories, told through Augmented Reality. It was exhibited in the museum in Lilydale from September - November as part of The Big Anxiety - a mental health and arts festival. On this episode, Scotia is joined by two of the key people behind the project: Megan Sheehy, Director of the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum; and Volker Kuchelmeister, lead immersive designer and Senior Research fellow at the University of New South Wales’ Felt Experience and Empathy Lab.We hear about the process of developing the work and the importance of centering the participants’ experience. We also discuss the broader opportunities for the future of digital storytelling as well as the crucial role that local government and local cultural institutions play in supporting communities through disaster recovery in regional areas. LINKSHard Place / Good Place https://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/enjoylocal/The-Big-Anxiety/Hard-PlaceGood-Place-Yarra-Ranges The Age, October 5 2022: ‘The tree got every room in the house’: At the centre of a terrifying Dandenong Ranges stormhttps://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-tree-got-every-room-in-the-house-at-the-centre-of-the-dandenong-ranges-terrifying-storm-20221005-p5bn9k.html Yarra Ranges Regional Museumhttps://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Experience/Yarra-Ranges-Regional-Museum Parragirls Past, Presenthttp://kuchelmeister.net/portfolio/parragirls-past-present/UNSW fEEL Labhttp://www.niea.unsw.edu.au/research/organisations/arc-laureate-felt-experience-empathy-lab-feel-lab The Big Anxiety Festivalhttps://www.thebiganxiety.org/ Creative Recovery Network Case Study Library https://creativerecovery.net.au/resources/ Creative Responders S1 E1, A Sense of safety: What young people are capable of in the face of disasterhttps://creativerecovery.net.au/creative-responders-podcast/documentary-series/series-1/s1-episode-01/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vic McEwan is the Artistic Director and co-founder of The Cad Factory, an artist-led organisation whose work and practice aims to enrich broader conversations about the role the arts can play within our communities.Vic is a leading practitioner in the field of socially engaged practice and joins us to discuss how this guides his work and The Cad Factory’s professional development and mentorship programs dedicated to exploring the ethics and expanding the community of practice around socially engaged work. He shares some of The Cad Factory’s impactful projects around community preparedness in the regional communities of Falls Creek and Menindee, and discusses the leadership opportunities for arts organisations to navigate a changing world and facilitate nuanced explorations of complex community issues.Links and resources:The Cad Factoryhttps://www.cadfactory.com.auFrom Menindee: Project description and short documentary https://www.cadfactory.com.au/from-menindee CASE Incubator https://www.cadfactory.com.au/case-incubator Socially Engaged Art Practice: A Responsibility Towards Care, Vic McEwan for Arts Hubhttps://www.cadfactory.com.au/_files/ugd/a2d021_4548711a50084d29a60957f72f37ace9.pdf The Clontarf Academyhttps://clontarf.org.au/ Produced by Scotia Monkivitch and Jill Robson, edited and mixed by Tiffany Dimmack. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Zena Armstrong joins us to share the story of community recovery following the Black Summer bushfires that devastated the village of Cobargo and the surrounding regions. Zena is a former Australian diplomat and director of the Cobargo Folk Festival where she works with a close-knit team of volunteers using music, art and the spoken word to grow community connectedness and imagine new ways of being. In the wake of the 2019-20 bushfires, Zena and the folk festival team joined forces with other key local organisations to harness the outpouring of support for their community forming the Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund, of which she is now President.The fund has supported more than 40 projects and the story of its formation embodies the collective process and potential for community-led approaches to support recovery and ongoing preparedness in regional communities.Further Reading: Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery FundCobargo Folk Festival"Don't dismiss our anger in Cobargo Scott Morrison, we are the ones living through a crisis", Guardian Article by Zena Armstrong and Peter Logue  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Naomi Sunderland is a lead researcher on The Remedy Project - an Australian Research Council supported project exploring music as a primary cultural determinant of health for First Nations communities. She joins us to discuss the healing power of music and her investigation into its role within First Nations communities as an enduring link to ancestors, Country, language and community.Naomi is a descendant of the Wiradjuri First Nations People and is based out of Griffith University in Meanjin, Brisbane. Her extensive research and publishing record in arts-health and First Nations social justice has a particular focus on creative, anti-oppressive, and trauma-informed approaches. Further reading: The Remedy Projecthttps://remedyproject.orgChildren’s Ground https://childrensground.org.au We Al-li Resources for trauma-informed care https://www.wealli.com.au/resources/  Inner Deep Listening and Quiet Awareness, a Reflection by Miriam Rose Ungunmerr via the Miriam Rose Foundationhttps://www.miriamrosefoundation.org.au/dadirri/ Listen to Kabi Kabi based Torres Strait Islander musician, Al Bartholomew’s, powerful acoustic tribute to Yothu Yindi’s Treaty. Al was one of the pilot study interviews for The Remedy Project and recorded this track on Kabi Kabi Country (Sunshine Coast, Queensland) with Chief Investigator, Phil Graham. https://remedyproject.org/stories Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anna Kennedy-Borissow joins us to discuss her PhD research into creative recovery projects in Australia. Anna is an arts manager, academic and theatre maker and currently a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne where she is researching the interplay of arts practice, community wellbeing and emergency management. Anna’s work addresses a gap in what is historically a lack of academic research in this field. By examining the extent to which arts participation builds resilience in disaster-affected communities and identifying the underlying factors that contribute to the success of creative recovery initiatives, she is working to establish an evidence-base to inform future developments in policy and practice.In this conversation, Scotia and Anna discuss: The challenges and opportunities around definitions and terminology when working in an emerging field of research. What is creative recovery and how is the term used across different disciplines, industries and locations? What current research can show about the specific ways arts programs contribute to individual and community wellbeing following a disaster and how Anna’s research framework seeks to observe trends across different communities that can be relevant to other communities who engage in creative recovery in the futureThe importance of timing and sensitivities required when working with disaster-impacted communities to reflect on their experiencesThe role and importance of rigorous research as an advocacy tool to influence policy frameworks and funding decisions Further reading:Performing Creativity, Culture and Wellbeinghttps://www.cawri.com.au/pccw2023 Creative Recovery Network Case Study Library https://creativerecovery.net.au/resources/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Writer, policy adviser, audio producer and accessibility consultant, Jonathan Craig, joins Scotia for a discussion about how disaster planning can be improved by connecting with people as individuals and bringing the lived experience of community members to the table.Jonathan is a policy advisor for Vision 2020 and has worked with Arts House Melbourne on several projects including Refuge, and the Warehouse Residency program for deaf and disabled artists.Recently, Jonathan was part of the creative team behind Exercise Torrent - the City of Melbourne’s annual disaster preparedness exercise. He reflects on the project and discusses the windows of opportunity that arts-based approaches can offer into aspects of preparedness sometimes overlooked by traditional processes, like accessibility.LinksJonathan Craig, Twitterhttps://twitter.com/j_d_x?lang=en Putting the Pieces Together: How the City of Melbourne is strengthening disaster management through creativity https://creativerecovery.net.au/creative-responders-podcast/documentary-series/s3-episode-10/ Defying Doomsday, Twelfth Planet Press http://www.twelfthplanetpress.com/products/ebooks/defying-doomsdayRebuilding Tomorrow, Twelfth Planet Presshttp://defyingdoomsday.twelfthplanetpress.com/rebuilding-tomorrow/ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darknesshttps://www.ursulakleguin.com/left-hand-darkness The Refuge Project, Arts House https://www.artshouse.com.au/artist-opportunities/refuge/ Convergence, Arts House https://www.artshouse.com.au/events/convergence/   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As cities and communities all over the world look to new models of disaster preparedness and response, how do we successfully activate a whole of community approach where everyone has a role to play and disaster management services are working with not for the community? In this episode of Creative Responders, we’ll hear what happened when the City of Melbourne tackled this question and engaged artists in the co-design and facilitation of a preparedness exercise, working with the North Melbourne community to imagine better models of response and recovery. The 2022 disaster preparedness simulation, Exercise Torrent, was a collaboration between City of Melbourne’s Emergency Management Department and Arts House that utilised an arts-based approach to develop a scenario for emergency management professionals, service providers and community organisations to interact with. City of Melbourne’s Emergency Management Coordinator, Christine Drummond, takes us inside the process of developing the exercise, how it played out on the day, and how bringing the arts into the process provided a different lens for people to participate more readily.We hear from artist facilitators Jonathan Craig and Dr Jen Rae and Arts House Creative Producer, Sarah Rowbottam, about how creative methodologies provide a layer of depth to the relational aspects of exercises like this, offering a window of opportunity into areas of preparedness sometimes overlooked by traditional processes, like accessibility.The project provides a model for how creativity and the arts can support community engagement strategies and provide entry points for practicing the skills of collaboration that will help us to better respond when a disaster occurs.Links / Further Reading:Arts Househttps://www.artshouse.com.au The Refuge Project https://www.artshouse.com.au/artist-opportunities/refuge/ Together by Richard Sennetthttps://www.penguin.com.au/books/together-9780141022109 Community Engagement for Disaster Resilience Handbookhttps://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/handbook-community-engagement/ Creative Responders in Conversation with Jen Raehttps://creativerecovery.net.au/creative-responders-podcast/in-conversation-series/s2-episode-10/ Creative Responders in Conversation with Kate Sulan https://creativerecovery.net.au/creative-responders-podcast/in-conversation-series/s1-episode-8/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nathan Harrison is part of the creative team at Boho Interactive, a collective of Australian artists and game designers who create interactive performances and games exploring concepts from systems science, complexity theory, resilience thinking, game theory and network theory. Nathan and Scotia discuss the wide-ranging applications of this work and how the participatory process of engaging in games has the power to ignite creativity, create shared languages, foster collaboration and provide entry points for exploring complex systems and ideas. Links and Further Reading Boho Interactivehttps://www.bestfestivalever.com.au Best Festival Ever Projecthttps://www.bestfestivalever.com.au/#/best-festival-ever/ Canberra 2060, Futures with a Capital Fhttps://www.bestfestivalever.com.au/#/canberra-2060/ Eden Marine High School Disaster Preparedness Program https://www.eden.nsw.au/boho-interactive-kicks-off-disaster-preparedness-youth-group-at-eden-marine-high-school/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boho-interactive-kicks-off-disaster-preparedness-youth-group-at-eden-marine-high-school Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World by Brian Walker and David Salt https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d7901f41e62ba340a30eb04/t/5d83f5e286a5bd19c4f55ff7/1568929253568/Walker+and+Salt+-+Sustaining+Ecosystems+and+People+in+a+Changing+Wor.pdf Blood on the Clocktower https://bloodontheclocktower.com  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.