Ideas that change everything
Join us Sunday 27 October at the Tea Rooms at the Castlemaine Botanical Gardens for an art workshop with Julie Lovett, an Irish artist from Castlemaine in Kerry Country, Ireland, here in Australia for TEDxCastlemaine.
Recreating Home through drawing
The aim of the workshop is to bring people together to share ideas and observations through drawing. I hope to delve into conversations around how we navigate around shared rural communal spaces and what home feels and looks like. By providing images of my home village of Castlemaine in Ireland, I hope to engage in an exchange of recreations of the village through drawing. I hope for our time together of drawing to be a relaxed yet creative 90 minutes of conversation and possibility. Through drawing, I hope to explore ideas of traditional and nuanced art practice.
Our speakers are a diverse range of artists, arts leaders, thinkers, innovators, comedians, performers, pioneers, regioneers, dancers, designers, writers and filmmakers from Castlemaine in Victoria, Castlemaine in Ireland and elsewhere.
BOOK BELOW - FOR ONE SESSION, OR ALL THREE SESSIONS.
TEDxCastlemaine: taking Castlemaine to the world and bringing the world to Castlemaine.
FRIDAY NIGHT 25 OCT 7PM | BOOK NOW
My ancestors, and First Nations people all over the world, have had their voices silenced, forced to assimilate into the colonial way of life. Amidst the destruction of families, spirituality, culture, language, storytelling, country and ceremony, how do we continue to speak for those who no longer can.
The most often asked question of James Morrison is “How do you get the time to learn so many different instruments?” An obvious question with a not so obvious answer. James will take us through the method he discovered to acquire skill in not only instrumental music, but every facet of his life. He says “it’s about your understanding of how mastery operates - it’s not what you think when you start out, why don't we start from the end?”
Rod has been trying for years to save the situation, but has come to the sad yet inevitable conclusion that we are looking at the extinction of Tim Tams. Rod Quantock OAM is a Melbourne-born pioneer of contemporary Australian comedy. His comic voice is uniquely and remarkably relevant, critical and enlightening. And, as a bonus, funny.
From living life as an agoraphobe in the twilight zone, suicide attempts and stays in psychiatric institutions, feeling like nothing, likely to die or be forever a failure at life, feeling constantly on edge to surfing, oxygen and wellness, committing to an obsessive, purposeful vocation, a pottery stall. Who knew the answer to my sanity lay in the byproduct of working day and night and making art compulsively - it’s been one very wild ride.
There’s a common conception about the benefits of streamlining things. But what if, at one point in your life, you decide to playfully corrupt this idea and invert it - with unexpected consequences that redefine how you tap into your creativity?
Grounded in the belief that care is essential to creativity, Kristen shares how her journey has instilled a profound appreciation for empathy and support within her artistic practice. With a gentle reminder of the strength that can arise from sorrow, inviting others to embrace their own stories of care and connection.
What if creativity is not a ‘doing’ but a way of being? Simon Dow has been a Principal Dancer of international status having danced with The Australian Ballet, the Stuttgart Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, Washington Ballet and as a frequent international guest artist with companies and festivals. He held the title of Resident Choreographer for The Australian Ballet School and has been a sought-after master teacher of dance for the past 30 years internationally.
Basil Eliades works in fields from Poetry and Painting to Chess and Martial Arts, making whiskey along the way, and also taught everything from primary school to University. So he has experienced and worked through many of the blocks and releases to Creative flow, with many people. In this talk, he explores some of them, and shares some ways to make your individual voice and vision flow better.
SATURDAY MORNING 26 OCT 11AM | BOOK NOW
Giving yourself the permission and time to reflect in order to learn and grow is practiced less and less these days. This was a learning gained whilst alone on country running long distances, one foot in front of the other, one marathon after the other. The traumatic events of our lives can be debilitating, crippling, can feel insurmountable or they can be moments that change everything.
Words matter. Reality relies on our ability to describe it. Language reveals the architecture of concept and context. Too few people have told too many stories for too long. Convergence dulls, limits, conforms. Divergent voices crack open new possibilities. Marginal voices mark social progress. Finding your voice is finding your purpose, your people, your power. I was six years old when I first knew I was wrong. Stories saved my life.
Lauren Mullings is a writer, creative producer and multi-disciplinary artist, who is passionate about people enhancing their lives through art and artmaking. She is also the CEO of MAV, an organisation that advocates for “Arts as diverse as our people”.
What if I suggested that the key to engaging everyone's distinctive voice and telling local stories lies not in just "stepping outside traditional performance spaces" but in setting the venues ablaze and walking away holding the matches? The revolution starts here to save live performance and story telling as we know it and make it what we know it really should and can be as the vibrant core of every community.
It’s no wonder our arts and cultural sector is drowning in conflict. On the one hand, we covet diversity and all the value it brings. On the other, we seek to surround ourselves with those who share our values, worldviews and opinions. But if we could learn to listen deeply to perspectives different from our own? What if we could repair what appears broken and learn to disagree better, for all our sakes, and for a safer and more creative sector.
Sometimes big changes come from tiny life-changing moments. This talk is about a tiny moment, when l undertook a film tour in the regions in 2002 while working for the National Film & Sound Archive. It’s about a community in a small town called Wagin, deep in WA’s wheat-belt. It’s about a small cinema built in a converted power relay station called The Little Gem and a BBQ I borrowed from the local Lions Club. It’s about what I think is a path back to the future for the Australian screen sector.
Despite our very best efforts, Australia’s arts, cultural and non-profit boards are broken. Worse, they’re inadvertently damaging the organisations and sectors they were set up to support – with arts boards making headlines for bullying and bad behaviour, conflicts of interest and lack of cultural safety, and more. But why? Governance provocateur Kate Larsen will share how boards are being set up to fail, and how even board members with the best of intentions can cause more harm than good.
They are the way we celebrate and challenge our present and are the changemakers for our future. At the centre of LGBTQIA+ are diverse communities with different identities, cultures, faiths, lived experiences, triggers, and needs. The road to PRIDE for many is about the power of sharing personal stories and the impact they can have. A talk about contemporary connectedness for communities and what unity means in a time marked by emotional separation and digital overload.
We know we are all going to die, but when we experience the loss of someone we love, or face our own mortality, it can seem utterly incomprehensible. Rituals surrounding death and dying can help us make sense of these complex experiences. This talk explores the process of making your own burial shroud and how preparing for your own death can transform the idea of mortality into a catalyst for living more fully and intentionally.
SATURDAY NIGHT 26 OCT 7PM | BOOK NOW
Australian music legend, Paul Grabowsky AO, will discuss how improvisation in music has allowed him to have extraordinary and life changing experiences, particularly with First Nations Australians.
Returning home and reconnecting with the village you grew up in is often an understated and surprising pathway to empowerment and finding new inspiration. I never expected it to be the case. Upon returning to my home village of Castlemaine, Co. Kerry in 2020, the positive impact on my life was profound. After living in larger cities and managing the challenges that presented, returning home to rural Ireland changed my approach to life and my art, for the better.
Dave Faulkner believes the act of performing music forges spiritual bonds that connect musicians with each other as well as to their audience. Communing and communicating via music enriches our lives and is an essential part of what makes us human.
How can one dance class change your view of the world, carve you an career and give you your purpose in life? This talk will touch on the invisible impacts of ableism, how the arts changes lives and what it is to live unapologetically in the skin you're in.
When you have art you have voice, with voice comes freedom and with freedom comes responsibility. Use art to change the cultural tapestry of a nation, weave it back together so we can all have a common vision for victory, a home for one, a home for all. This is my journey toward trying to have a good sense of right and wrong. Richard Frankland is an Australian playwright, scriptwriter and musician.
A successful career in the arts is part grit, part luck and a good amount of self-knowledge. Sally Richardson’s career began in a unique and personal way. She’s harnessed her considerable skills and passion to launch a production company, a circus company, creating dance, theatre and community events. Currently she is Executive Producer for Ten Days on the Island – Australia’s only biennial arts festival that embraces its whole state.
After several decades in the Performing Arts Industry, it's been quite a journey of learning and coming to understand why its so important that we as Black fellas are in creative, cultural and political control over our stories. I knew why innately, but its taken me a while to be able to articulate it. It’s a basic human right for the individual/community, a people, to have authority over their story, their narrative. It's important who tells the story.