America’s Library Journal has a piece on the Comic Maker built by the State Library of Queensland and piloted by Fun Palaces over in the UK.
The comic maker was built by Phil Gullberg and Talia Yat of the State Library. Read Ian Chant’s piece on the Comic Maker over at the Library Journal site.
Hard even to know what to say about a year like 2016. So much upset and upheaval in the world, but I’m still hopeful for the shape of things to come.
It’s been hectic, but productively so, for us here at the State Library of Queensland. I worked with teams on public projects like Human Library and the Scrub Turkey sessions, adding oral histories from TV chef Bernard King and Doctor Who‘s Janet Fielding to our digital collections, and encouraging digital experiments like the State Library’s remixable comic maker and Ozofarm game.
I also got to partner with a number of outside organisations, including healthcare agencies and allied health professionals across Queensland, from Metro South Health Board to the occupational therapy students of Griffith University. A long-held desire to explore the difficult field of ‘death literacy’ came to fruition with a panel discussion for Brisbane’s inaugural ‘Deathfest’ last month.
I also got to work with the Brisbane Writers Festival and various other events across Australia on devising alternatives to the usual conference formats of panels and presentations.
There was even time to interview some personal heroes like the Kransky Sisters, Matti Bunzl of the Vienna Museum, and the makers of Danger 5. This was part of exploring a different corner of Queensland life every week at Marvellous, Electrical, a project that will return in 2017.
Until then, have a good break.
In this week’s Marvellous, Electrical, Leanne de Souza of Brisbane’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Writers Festival runs backwards through the highs and lows of an eventful life…
What values have migrants brought to Australia over the years? How have they changed the nation’s culture? Have they broken laws in an attempt to impose foreign ways of life on the population?
Gus Petersilka of Canberra did. By putting out tables and chairs on the sidewalks of Australia’s capital, he forced the uptight city government to acknowledge, accept, and ultimately embrace convivial traditions of outdoor dining.
Now Gus’ Cafe is gone.
The State Library of Queensland has a staff Christmas video competition – as I found out when I returned from my regional travels to be told I’d “volunteered” to shoot an entry for my new colleagues at the Regional Partnerships team…
Half an hour running around with a camera, and a bit of editing time later, Rogue One RAPL was born. It’s good for a laugh, and features some of the great people I’ll be teaming up with in the new year:
Of course, this is only the second best Star Wars related activity I’ve ever been involved with.
Or maybe even the third.
After Brisbane’s first Deathfest – a microfestival which explores, challenges, and celebrates our understanding of death, dying, and bereavement – I’m pleased to share a panel discussion which addressed grief, death, and end-of-life care in modern-day Queensland.
Joining me were Fiona Hawthorne, general manager at Hummingbird House, Queensland’s first children’s hospice; Ian Mellor, who manages body bequests for Queensland University of Technology; and Dr Sarah Winch, healthcare ethicist at the University of Queensland and author of Best Death Possible.
In an age when literacy has come to mean so many things – always with a sense of empowering people to read or make sense of some new terrain, topic, or experience – what would it mean for us to become truly “death literate”?
You can listen to the panel discussion now by clicking on this link or visit the State Library website.
For more on healthcare and wellbeing work during my Queensland residency, read “On Health and Wellbeing” and “Giant Robots Need Therapy Too“.
For more on Deathfest, visit the Metro Arts website.
What links stone circles, public libraries, the seas of the Torres Strait, and 1980s pop band The Teardrop Explodes?
You can find out in my keynote from last week’s SWITCH 2016 conference in New South Wales – “Science Fiction Double Feature” is available to download from their website as a PDF.
I’m in the coastal town of Ulladulla to talk libraries with people from across the state of New South Wales at the SWITCH 2016 conference.
You can catch up with my keynote “Science Fiction Double Feature” from lunchtime (AEDT) Wednesday – try the #switch2016 hashtag on Twitter – and read the keynote paper on the SWITCH website (PDF download).
The paper will be up on the SWITCH website shortly after the event.
I visited South Australia last week, so of course I had to say hi to the Adelaide-based creators of Danger 5, one of the most unusual and provocative Aussie TV shows of all time.
The action comedy pits five Allied agents against the forces of Nazism in a warped version of World War II incorporating mind-controlled dinosaurs, a seagull-headed military officer, and the lost city of Atlantis.
In its second season, the show takes a dark and dramatic turn, becoming a serialised revenge epic set in a strange version of the 1980s, ripped from the shelves of a VHS rental store.
The whole project is the brainchild of filmmakers Dario Russo and David Ashby. I talked with them about their surreal brand of action adventure, the need to laugh at Hitler, cosmopolitanism, fascism, and the glorious world of B-movie pulp.
On Friday, I was guest speaker at South Australia’s Crawford Awards for Library Innovation.
It was a chance to explore how Aussie libraries ensure that they create services for and with their communities – and acknowledge the specific colonial history of this land.
It was also an opportunity to celebrate many of the friends and colleagues I’ve worked with during my residency at the State Library of Queensland.
The Award was given to the rural South Australian city of Murray Bridge for a project working with local Aboriginal elders, introducing the Ngarrindjeri language to a new generation through stories and song.
Congratulations to Tim Law, Georgina Trevorrow, and all at Murray Bridge who are working to acknowledge the traditional owners of the Murraylands and support their community.
matt finch / mechanical dolphin 