What's On at UWA

Join us for an innovative touch and audio descriptive tour of Kevin Ballantine: Photographs 1986 – 2001 and HERE&NOW17: New Photography. Audio Description enhances visual art for people who are blind or vision impaired. A trained Audio Describer delivers a verbal description of the visual elements.

This tour will also include various tactile 3D-printed translations of the artworks on display.

Refreshments Provided.

** Presenting the inaugural TEDxUWASalon Series, ART // ACT **

We invite you to explore the concept of "artistic activism". Join the global discussion on the power of spreading ideas through the visual and the verbal. Discover how local change-makers are taking a stand on global issues through artistic platforms!

|| PART ONE || In partnership with the UWA Cultural Precinct & City of Perth WinterArts Festival, we are proud to announce the first part of TEDxUWASalon: ART // ACT, focusing on the VISUAL. We are excited to be returning to the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery for our very first cocktail event of the year. With a schedule of live talks, performances and TED talk screenings, it's going to be a fantastic night you won't want to miss!

So come join us for an evening of eclectic conversation and thought-provoking ideas. Don't forget to check out PART TWO during Social Impact Festival 2017!

***What is TEDxUWASalon?*** Salon events are smaller-scaled gatherings that keep a TEDx community engaged between main conferences. It provides the opportunity for more in-depth and intimate ideas sharing. It also focuses on one theme, so expect a niche audience of like-minded people to keep the conversation going! For more information: https://www.ted.com/participate/organize-a-local-tedx-event/before-you-start/event-types/salon-event

Join Nyoongar artist Sharyn Egan and learn how to make a fibre art sculpture animal – a dog, bird, lizard or other desert creature - from straw and colourful natural fibres.

Learn techniques from an acclaimed local artist whose woven work has been widely exhibited. All participants will leave with a unique creation they have made themselves from natural and acrylic fibres during Sharyn’s fun and relaxed workshop.

All materials will be provided. Ages 10 - 14. Cost: $10

Presented as part of the UWA Cultural Precinct's WINTERarts program.

Russian artists have often deployed ostensibly ‘mad’ tactics to provoke public response, and provide commentary on social and political affairs. In turn, Russian authorities have turned to the label of madness to discredit, marginalise and institutionalise artists who dared to engage in such activities. In this fascinating public talk Dr Iva Glisic will explore historical and contemporary examples of the interplay between politics, art and madness in Russia, providing insight into the political culture of a country that continues to play a significant role on the global stage.

This public talk will be held at The University Club of Western Australia.

Using 100% Australian Merino wool and a picture of your pet, artist Elizabeth Marruffo will show you some simple tricks to sculpt a beautiful little portrait of your pet. As your imagination runs wild we will also make accessories and food for your tiny companion.

Needle felting is so fun and easy that you’ll soon have the hang of it and be able to sculpt just about anything you can imagine!

Ages: Primary and high school students. Cost: $10

Presented as part of the UWA Cultural Precinct's WINTERarts program.

It’s time to get tiny! Artist Elizabeth Marruffo will take you on a sculpting adventure as you create tiny creatures of the fantastic. Using polymer clay and a range of clever sculpting tools and techniques, you will learn the basic skills that will help you sculpt anything you like.

Dragons, chimeras, mermaids, basilisks, harpies, unicorns, pegasuses, pegacorns. Whatever your heart desires, we’ll help you make it a tiny reality to take home.

Ages 6+ Cost: $20

Presented as part of the UWA Cultural Precinct's WINTERarts program.

The Likeness is an exhibition drawn from the Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art and curated by Gemma Weston.

It is a partial survey of 100 years of Australian portraiture, reflecting how artists have utilised the genre to explore ideas of self-determination, identity and the changing - or unchanging - role of art in society.

Join Gemma for an in–depth examination of the collection’s take on women’s portraiture, and a close look at key collection works.

Under the baton of Maestro Vladimir Verbitsky, The Symphonic Chorus of UWA join WASO and the WASO Chorus in the Russian masterpiece, Rachmaninov’s massive, Edgar Allan Poe-inspired choral symphony The Bells. Program

RACHMANINOV The Bells TCHAIKOVSKY Manfred Symphony Vladimir Verbitsky conductor Antoinette Halloran soprano Bradley Daley tenor Warwick Fyfe bass

Tickets from $21 for under 30's (booking fees apply) waso.com.au

View The Likeness and learn some tips and tricks from professional artist Elizabeth Marruffo to paint your own portrait. All materials provided. Participants will need to bring with them a printed A4 sized ‘selfie’ picture of themselves.

Limit of 20 people for ages 13-17 years

Did you know that many of the earliest pigments used to paint with were first used to decorate our bodies? Let’s see how we can use modern make-up as a palette and create our own self-portraits. If you can apply a decent foundation, you’re already on your way to painting a great portrait.

View the portraiture exhibition The Likeness and join us in this two hour workshop to learn some tips and tricks from professional artist Elizabeth Marruffo. All materials provided. Participants will need to bring with them a printed A4 ‘selfie’ photograph.

Ages 13 - 17. Cost: $12

Presented as part of the UWA Cultural Precinct's WINTERarts program.

Have you ever wanted to climb the 184 steps to the top of the UWA clock tower to marvel at the view? Come and discover this and some of the other hidden secrets and treasures at UWA’s Crawley campus on a tour Behind the Doors, led by the University’s recently retired “Oracle” Terry Larder.

Beginning at the acclaimed Hans Arkeveld sculpture outside the entrance to the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Terry will guide you through the Sunken Garden into the portrait lined halls of the Senate Room and across the Great Gate into Winthrop Hall, as well as discover the hidden air-raid shelters in the basement of this magnificent heritage-listed building.

The tour is free as well as the parking on campus, but places are limited so registration is essential. Spot prizes of 100 Treasures from UWA will be awarded, compliments of UWA Publishing.

Suitable for anyone over the age of 8.

Presented as part of the UWA Cultural Precinct's WINTERarts program.

At KIN Village, children will have the chance to explore and play in nature under the pines in UWA’s beautiful Somerville Auditorium. With the guidance of the team at Educated by Nature, children will build a village of cubbies, make nature-inspired art, learn whittling, play wilderness adventure games, and make music with songs that engage, entertain and provide a little bit of extra magic.

Educated by Nature aims to increase the mental, emotional and physical health of children and in doing so, foster a deep love for the natural environment. KIN Village at Somerville is a chance to learn, play and be creative, and will be an adventure for children come rain, hail or shine!

Drop and leave program. Children should bring their own lunch. Tickets cost $50 for the day (10am - 3pm).

Best suited for ages 7 - 12.

Find out more about Educated by Nature at www.educatedbynature.com

This event is part of the The University of Western Australia WINTERarts program. For the full program, visit http://culturalprecinct.uwa.edu.au/winterarts

Learn how to get your work published with tips and practical guidance from industry professionals.

Join UWA Publishing for a professional development day and gain insights into the entire publishing process – from writing a compelling book proposal, to marketing and publicity. Learn how a manuscript gets made into a book and finds its way to readers, and how best to approach publishers about your project.

Presented as part of the UWA WINTERarts Festival 2017.

The Social Impact Festival 2017 is a platform for cutting-edge knowledge and ideas, celebrating initiatives creating positive change, and generating insights that address complex social problems.

The festival will bring almost 200 contributors, who are leading experts and social changemakers in the local and global scene. The Social Impact Festival will be held in various locations at The University of Western Australia, Perth CBD, and across metro and regional areas.

For more information and to register, please visit socialimpactfestival.org

A public lecture by Ned Curthoys, English and Cultural Studies, The University of Western Australia.

In a famous and enduringly influential reading of Jane Austen’s novels, the moral philospher Alasdair MacIntyre argues in his germinal work of moral philosophy After Virtue (1981) that Austen was the ‘last, great effective voice of that tradition of thought about, and practice of, the virtues’. MacIntyre suggests that Austen’s novels promote a catalogue of virtuous behaviours including amiability, practical intelligence, constancy, humility, and a capacity for self-examination. These intrinsic virtues, practised by Austen’s heroines and heroes, can be considered to build character in a manner that can be distinguished from the simulated charms of personages in her novels who are focused on external goods such as wealth and reputation. It is essential to MacIntyre’s conception of the virtues that they are not timeless and universal, but relevant to particular societies in their struggle against the vices and social ills of their age. Perhaps controversially MacIntyre insists that for Austen the ‘touchstone of the virtues is a certain kind of marriage and indeed a certain kind of [English] naval officer’. For Austen companionate marriage is conceived in patriotic and conservative terms as supporting a well ordered household and stable social structures. Austen’s emphasis on constancy as a cardinal virtue is buttressed, argues MacIntyre, by her powerful moral criticism of irresponsible parents, and guardians, and the caprice of younger romantics such as Marianne Dashwood.

This lecture will explore the strengths and weaknesses of MacInytre’s interpretation of Austen’s novels and its subsequent critical reception. It will emphasize that MacIntrye is contributing to an ongoing repositioning of Austen as a novelist with moral and philosophical intentions. It will examine MacIntyre’s interpretation of Austen alongside recent scholarship pointing to her reinvention of literary genres focused on manners and social etiquette and her promotion, following David Hume, of the ‘education of the passions’. Lastly the lecture will discuss Austen’s indebtedness to the Third Earl of Shaftesbury’s discourse on the profound moral significance of robust and convivial conversation.

About this Series - New Perspectives on Jane Austen On the two-hundredth anniversary of her death, this UWA Institute of Advanced Studies - Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies Lecture Series presents new perspectives on the life and work of Jane Austen. Drawing upon the latest literary and historical research, UWA researchers tackle key themes in Austen's work and the wider social and cultural contexts in which she created her now world-famous novels.

UWA Publishing warmly invites you to the launch of Shaping the Fractured Self: Poetry of chronic illness and pain, edited by Heather Taylor Johnson.

Shaping the Fractured Self showcases twenty-eight of Australia’s finest poets who happen to live with chronic illness and pain. The autobiographical short essays, in conjunction with the three poems from each of the poets, capture the body in trauma in its many and varied moods. Because those who live with chronic illness and pain experience shifts in their relationship to it on a yearly, monthly or daily basis, so do the words they use to describe it.

Shaping the Fractured Self will be launched by writer, scholar and contributor Rachel Robertson. The launch will also feature readings from contributing poet Kevin Gillam and editor Heather Taylor Johnson.

Please RSVP by Monday 17 July for catering purposes.

‘The whole universe is one single nest,’ from the Upanishads, adopted as a motto by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). In this special talk, Peter Underwood will discuss two recent radio snippets broadcast on Radio National, both concerning medical research.

Peter Underwood is a doctor, academic and writer. An Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Western Australia, he is a Vice President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (www.mapw.org.au). He lives in Perth and Denmark, WA.

'I was born in Perth, studied science and then medicine at UWA, and after a spell as a doctor in Oz’s far north, travelled slowly through India and Central Asia, a life changing experience.

Eventually reaching London, I completed post-graduate studies but fell under the spell of both EF Schumacher of Small is Beautiful, and, though irredeemably irreligious, some radical groups practicing ‘liberation theology’. As a result, I ended up with my then-wife and tiny child working as volunteers for several years in the remote mountains of North Yemen.

Returning to Perth and UWA, I was a founder of UWA’s Department of General Practice but continued to work and travel in 'wild places’. In my teaching and research in medicine I have tried to emphasise the ‘human’ and the 'social’ against the notion of humans as elevated bits of clockwork. I believe that this impoverished idea of what we are and can be underlies our increasingly narcissistic and commodified world.

I now share my time between writing and broadcasting, some medical teaching and consulting, running a small farm, looking after my grandchildren, and peace and environmental activism. I reckon Santayana’s saying that 'life is not a spectacle nor a feast but a predicament' is baloney: life is all three'. 

** Presenting the inaugural TEDxUWASalon Series, ART // ACT **

We invite you to explore the concept of "artistic activism". Join the global discussion on the power of spreading ideas through the visual and the verbal. Discover how local change-makers are taking a stand on global issues through creative platforms!

|| PART TWO ||

In partnership with Alumni for Social Impact - UWA & The Centre for Social Impact , we are proud to announce the second part of TEDxUWASalon: ART // ACT, focusing on the VERBAL. This is an Impact Sparker Event during Social Impact Festival 2017.

With our debut at the newly-refurbished Carpe Diem Room at Education Futures UWA, it's going to be a wonderful afternoon you won't want to miss!

Check out the full SIF 2017 Program here: https://www.facebook.com/events/310955969337463

***What is TEDxUWASalon?***

Salon events are smaller-scaled gatherings that keep a TEDx community engaged between main conferences. It provides the opportunity for more in-depth and intimate ideas sharing. It also focuses on one theme, so expect a niche audience of like-minded people to keep the conversation going! For more information: https://www.ted.com/participate/organize-a-local-tedx-event/before-you-start/event-types/salon-event

"It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment – that explodes in poetry." Adrienne Rich

In this workshop writer and editor Heather Taylor Johnson will guide participants on how to nd language for the unspeakable.

Why is poetry the form in which such explosions can take place, and how can poetry’s qualities be harnessed to explode the experience of trauma? What must hold together, and what can fall apart? Heather Taylor Johnson, writer and editor of Shaping the Fractured Self: Poetry of chronic illness and pain, will guide you through ways to find a language for the unspeakable, for conditions kept quiet and experiences communicated in groans and grunts.

This workshop will help you take those experiences and shape them into poetry.

Refreshments will be provided.

Presented as part of the UWA WINTERarts Festival 2017.

Join writer Heather Taylor Johnson in giving your illness narrative meaning, not a label.

David Foster Wallace famously said "The role of literature is to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed". In the case of an illness narrative, the author is both the one doing the disturbing and the one who is disturbed, so it’s no wonder illness is such an intimidating topic. This workshop will help you to claim the titles of 'disturber' and 'disturbed' and find the right balance. We will talk about fiction and non-fiction, and open up a space in which we can blur the two, a space in which we can use the 'I' without naming the 'I.

Refreshments will be provided.

Presented as part of the UWA WINTERarts Festival 2017.