What's On at UWA

The tiny Indian Ocean Muslim nation of the Maldives experienced a democratic transition in 2009. However, the country has been engulfed by a tumultuous politics. A dominant approach to understand its troubled politics is through the lens of religion. In this presentation, Azim Zahir will explain the larger transformations of Islam's relationship to politics in the country to explore its role – or the lack of it – in the country's political turmoil.

Azim Zahir is a final year PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia and works as a Research Assistant at the Centre for Muslim States and Societies, UWA. He has a Masters degree from the University of Sydney. His current research is on secularism, Islam and democracy in the Maldives and looks at how the implications of the research bear on prevailing thinking on Muslim politics. His previous research includes radicalisation in the Maldives.

ENTRY: Free. Please RSVP to [email protected]

About the talk

The Friends of the UWA Library are delighted to begin the 2018 series of talks with award-winning author, Josephine Wilson. Josephine will talk about her critically acclaimed book Extinctions.

Winner of the prestigious 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award and Colin Roderick Award, nominated for the 2017 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, and before its publication, the winner of the inaugural 2015 Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, Extinctions has been praised for its humour, poignancy and, from the 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award judges’ comments, “a compassionate and unapologetically intelligent novel”.

Extinctions is a novel about all kinds of extinction – natural, racial, national and personal – and what we can do to prevent them. Josephine will share her inspiration, perspiration and insights to her work.

UWA Publishing will have copies of her book available for sale.

About the speaker

Josephine began her career in the area of performance. She completed a Masters of Philosophy at Queensland University and a PhD at the University of Western Australia.

She is the co-author of the performance/theatre work The Geography of Haunted Places, and author of the novel Cusp. She has reviewed for Realtime, ArtLink Magazine and for The West Australian, and is a board member for the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Josephine has taught as sessional staff at Murdoch, UWA and Curtin University.

7.00 pm for a 7.30 start

Members: Free, Guests: $5 donation

A Talking Allowed event with Associate Professor Clarissa Ball, Discipline Chair, History of Art, UWA School of Design and Director, UWA Institute of Advanced Studies.

In late 2017, Donald and Melania Trump asked the Guggenheim Museum if they could borrow a van Gogh painting for their White House private quarters. Their request was rejected and countered with an offer of Maurizio Cattelan’s America, (2016) a fully functional 18-carat solid gold toilet that more than 100,000 people had already used. While some considered the Guggenheim’s offer a contemptible act of profanity, others claimed that the real work of art here was the suggestion that for the Trumps, a well-used toilet that reportedly cost in excess of $1 million to make was a more fitting artwork than a van Gogh.

Join us for this first Talking Allowed of 2018, when the complexities of this incident will be explored and we ask, what’s the fuss? After all, the toilet as subject and object of art has a long and noble history.

‘Talking Allowed’ is presented by the UWA Institute of Advanced Studies and the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery.

On the second Wednesday of every month, a UWA academic will give a short presentation on a topic of current relevance to the arts and culture before inviting the audience to participate in discussion and debate.

‘Talking Allowed’ is designed to be thought-provoking, challenging, stimulating and engaging. Come along and join the dialogue on matters that are of great importance to our society.

Join us each week for a delightful musical surprise!

From young artist-led concerts to informal musical drinks on the famous grassy knoll, behind-the scenes workshops, lectures and masterclasses, these free weekly musical experiences will delight all music lovers.

This week we welcome visiting artist Miquel Bernat.

Miquel received his musical education at the conservatories of Valencia, Madrid, Brussels and Rotterdam, and at the Aspen Summer Music Festival (USA). He was granted the "Premio Extraordinario Fin de Carrera" at the Conservatory of Madrid, the Special Prize for Percussion at the Dutch Gaudeamus Competition and the 2nd prize at the Aspen Nakamichi Competition.

Being a musician of great versatility, he has played with the Orquesta Ciutat de Barcelona and with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, as well as in the contemporary music ensembles Ictus, Ictus Piano and Percussion Quartet, Trio Allures, Duo Contemporain, among others.

Miquel will perform works from Spanish composers featured in his new book of marimba etudes, plus percussion works by Alvarez, Applebaum and more.

Entry is free - no bookings required.

A public lecture by Dr Susanne Meurer, School of Design, The University of Western Australia.

Virtuous women encountered a great deal of violence in early modern art – at times they were the victims of physical brutality or emotional cruelty, at times they were its righteous perpetrators. One of the most prominent and accomplished painters of both types of imagery happened to be a woman herself: Artemisia Gentileschi. As in the case of her friend Caravaggio, Artemisia’s work tends to be read through the prism of her life. The rape she suffered as a young woman is often thought to be reflected in the (re-)actions of her predominantly female heroines. Yet, is it wise to read biography into an artwork? To what extent are Artemisia’s visual strategies conditioned by her gender? Does a woman portray violence in a different way to a man?

This lecture is part of a lecture series: 'A Window on Italy – The Corsini Collection: Masterpieces from Florence'

The Institute of Advanced Studies is pleased to present a series of lectures to be held in conjunction with the exhibition, A Window on Italy – The Corsini Collection: Masterpieces from Florence, which is being held at the Art Gallery of Western Australia from 24 February – 18 June 2018.

The exhibition is organised by the Galleria Corsini, Florence, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tãmaki, the Art Gallery of Western Australia and MondoMostre, Rome..

It’s on again, the 2018 Designer Clothing Sale, starting with the launch cocktail party on Thursday night from 5.30pm which will be the first opportunity to purchase a bargain.

Thursday night only works for some, so for those on campus we will be open all day Friday from 10am – 6pm.

This year we are introducing Saturday for weekend shoppers - we’ll open from 10am to 3pm. Items available to purchase include - dresses, jackets, coats, suits, shirts, skirts, pants, evening attire, scarves, shoes, hats, bags, belts and jewellery.

These clothes are either new (still with the tags on) or good condition second hand, some have never been worn.

Adam Heath, Bagutta, Harpers Emporium & other stores have agreed to support us again and we are enormously grateful to them.

All monies raised will support Team Perkins in the Hawaiian Walk for Women’s Cancer on Saturday May 5, 2018.

Looking forward to a terrific 2018 Designer Clothing Sale.

Recent advances in beef cattle genetics have the potential to change beef breeding. They can enable seedstock breeders to significantly increase rates of genetic progress and importantly at the commercial sector, allow producers to better match genetics to their production systems and markets. The talk will discuss how genetics and selection can be used across the beef supply chain to increase productivity and profitability. The presentation will cover recent advancements in beef cattle genetics including the evolving field of DNA and genomics, new genetic evaluation systems and the development of novel traits with a focus on northern systems.

Please register online at www.ioa.uwa.edu.au/events/register

Join us for a celebration of Australian music featuring works by David Pye

Piñata Percussion is the resident percussion ensemble at UWA. Each year, Piñata’s concert season is opened with a program of new and existing works for percussion ensemble by Australian composers, allowing engagement with the nation’s leading creative minds in percussion composition and performance.

In 2018, Piñata celebrates the music of David Pye, an influential figure in Australian new music since the 1980s. For three decades, Pye led a number of ensembles and projects from Fremantle, playing a pivotal role in establishing the flourishing percussion scene in WA. Pye will be artist-in-residence with Piñata in February and March. This program celebrates his significant contributions to Australian music with two works: Pye’s 2003 percussion masterpiece 'rebana loops' and the world premiere of 'octet 112358'.

The program also features a new work from UWA graduate Adam Tan workshopped and developed for Piñata ahead of Tan’s residency in Florida at the Florida Mallet Lab Summer Intensive in May, alongside works by artists from around Australia including Timothy Constable, Nigel Westlake, Vanessa Tomlinson.

Tickets: $15 Standard | $10 Concessions | Free for school students

A number of grammatical descriptions of Arandic varieties from Central Australia appeared between 1890 and 1910. These reflect a variety of theoretical approaches to grammar which were emerging from German philology and linguistics in the early twentieth century. Far from being ahistorical, linguistic descriptions are informed by their theoretical roots and the context of their development, which can influence how we understand a given language. In this talk, I will consider the historical context of the grammars of Central Australian languages.

I compare Carl Strehlow’s Aranda grammar (1908; 1910) with Hermann Kempe’s grammar of 1891. Planert’s (1907) grammar was contemporary with Strehlow’s linguistic works and clearly influenced by Kempe’s earlier analyses. The dispute between Planert and Strehlow in the pages of the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie (Strehlow 1908; Planert 1908) throws the differences into sharp relief. Strehlow’s grammars effectively avoid some of the limitations of those of his predecessors. I will show that Strehlow’s training in translation and philology facilitated his understanding of the grammatical categories of Central Australian languages.

The Asian region has moved rapidly through the demographic transition since the 1970s, but demographic prospects are very different for East Asia (facing shrinking populations), South Asia (facing substantial further increases) and Southeast Asia (in between). Individual country situations vary enormously, both between and within these three broad regions. In addressing demographic-developmental interrelationships, the countries are best grouped according to their current fertility levels, which are closely correlated with their levels of human development, their projected population increases, and where they stand in relation to the age structure changes contributing to the “demographic dividend”.

In this presentation, the relative speed of demographic change in the different parts of Asia will be compared, their demographic prospects discussed, the implications for their further development assessed, and policy implications addressed. How optimistic can we be about future prospects?

Be transported from the everyday by our free lunchtime concert series, featuring the best musical talent from within the UWA Conservatorium of Music and around the country.

Week 3 - UWA Woodwinds

This week hear talented students from the UWA Woodwind program performing a huge variety of repertoire. From Ligeti's Bagatelles for Wind Quintet and Muczynski duos, to other works for winds and piano, the exceptional ability of young emerging artists and their passion for music will always create a special experience for concertgoers.

Entry is free - no bookings required.

Anthropologists have long demonstrated how the concepts and practices of kinship are fundamental to social life. However, the way in which these concepts are expressed, and practices enacted, varies greatly from context to context. This paper begins from the question: if kinship really is fundamental to social life, then is this the case even in the most remote, and ephemeral, milieux on Earth: those that live in Antarctica bases? Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in and through New Zealand’s Scott Base, and the USA’s McMurdo Station, during the summer field season of 2016-17, this paper shows how the concepts and practices of kinship are fundamental here. Yet more intriguing are questions of how ties of genealogy, gendered relations, and practices of home-building, are constructed and sustained in such extreme settings.

In 2008, the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, states that successful learners are ‘’creative, innovative and resourceful and are able to solve problems in ways that draw upon a range of learning areas and disciplines’’. Through polymathic principles, is it possible that we can re-develop old school educational pedagogy to challenge traditional methods of classroom teaching to incorporate transdisciplinary practice for 21st century learners? Is it time to create a new educational “ism” - Polymathicism.

As an artist, Alana Lewis is a jack of all trades, she uses an eclectic mix of conceptual and material practices. As an educator she is interested in developing creativity through transdisciplinary practice in secondary education. In 2017 she was awarded the NSW Premier’s Copyright Agency Creativity across the Curriculum Scholarship to research transdisciplinary practice through Science and Art.

A public lecture by Liz Pellicano, Professor of Educational Studies, Macquarie University.

In this presentation, Liz will argue that truly understanding autism – knowing autism – requires both objective and subjective understandings, experiences and expertise, that is, listening, learning and involving autistic people and their families in research. She investigates in depth what the autistic community rightly demands of autism research and the major changes that will need to be made to deliver on their expectations.

Liz’s talk is supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, as part of their 2018 public talk series.

Join us each week for a delightful musical surprise!

From young artist-led concerts to informal musical drinks on the famous grassy knoll, behind-the scenes workshops, lectures and masterclasses, these free weekly musical experiences will delight all music lovers.

This week Bachelor of Philosophy (Hons) student Megan Barbetti returns from a semester studying at McGill University, Canada to perform a solo recital.

The program will include: Shinohara 'Kassouga', Damase 'Rhapsodie Hétu 'Aria', and Widor 'Suite for Flute and Piano'

Entry is free - no bookings required.

This study aims to analyse the media coverage of disaster in Indonesia by looking at how two daily print newspapers (Kedaulatan Rakyat and Kompas) reported on two different types of disasters: the Mt. Merapi eruption of 2010 and forest fires in 2015. It will focus on the images used in the reporting of those two disasters because images are powerfully effective modes of communication that can be manipulated to exploit sentiment (Sontag 1979). This study will analyse how particular aspects of reality are selected by the media and the factors that determine each selection. Understanding the way the media select disaster images is important because dramatized or sensationalized photos may commodify suffering in order to drive traffic and increase circulation but this also misrepresents the nature of the disasters. This misrepresentation has implications for disaster management, how people respond to the disaster, and how assistance can be provided. Currently the Indonesian media have no guidelines for the publication of photos and studies by Masduki (2007) have expressed concerns at the way disasters have been portrayed by the media and what this means for official responses. Through the analysis of the images in the two newspapers and interviews with photojournalists, editors, broadcast media editors, and the Indonesian Journalist Association, it is possible to identify the influences behind the framing of the two disaster events and to consider how the exposure of these influences may lead to the development of best practice reportage of disaster events in Indonesia.

Be transported from the everyday by our free lunchtime concert series, featuring the best musical talent from within the UWA Conservatorium of Music and around the country.

Celebrated UWA music staff Cecilia Sun (fortepiano) and Simon Lee Foundation Artist in Residence Shaun Lee-Chen (violin) will present some of Beethoven’s classic violin sonatas (amongst other important repertoire from the period) in a series of free concerts across 2018.

In this concert they will perform Mozart's 'Sonata for Piano and Violin in B-Flat Major' and Beethoven's 'Sonata for Piano and Violin in G Major'

Entry is free, no bookings required

The Ordinary Meetings of Convocation are the General Meetings for the University. The Ordinary Meetings of Convocation provide an opportunity to hear the Vice-Chancellor, the Guild President and the Warden of Convocation report on matters relating to the University.

Questions are invited from the audience on any issues pertaining to the University.

All UWA graduates are members of Convocation and are entitled to attend.

Guest Speaker: Mr Patrick Cornish will give a talk on 'UWA: Launchpad for a storyteller'

All are welcome to the premier screening of the first ever documentary film, exploring the ancient game of Go “The Surrounding Game”, followed by a panel discussion with academics, students and practitioners with interest in applying lessons from Go to social science, IT, education and ways of working.

Dear colleagues, The W.A. Migration Research Network (MRN), the UWA School of Social Sciences and the Migration, Mobilities and Belonging Network (MMoB) have great pleasure in inviting you to mark Harmony Week with us. In Pursuit Of Harmony: Premier Screening of the first ever Documentary Film: Exploring the Ancient Game of Go “The Surrounding Game” All are welcome to the premier screening of the first ever documentary film, exploring the ancient game of Go “The Surrounding Game”, followed by a panel discussion with academics, students and practitioners with interest in applying lessons from Go to social science, IT, education and ways of working.

RSVP to: [email protected]