Brisbane Free University

The Oranienplatz Refugee Strike Squat is a refugee-led community struggle of many guises and dimensions mobilising against the conditions of Residenzpflicht currently imposed on refugees seeking asylum within the German state. Starting in 2012, the strike was initiated by refugees housed in the lagers (refugee accommodation) all over Germany who could no longer tolerate the substandard living conditions, the racism, the precarity and the control over their everyday lives imposed from a state whose wealth has– both today and historically–been accumulated off the backs of migrant exploitation and imperalist war.

These refugees marched on a square in the suburb of Kreuzberg, Berlin to take action on these conditions and deliver their demands to the Berlin Burgermeister and the SPD government. They also lived and organised within a secondary base in a squatted school in Ohaulerstrasse, Kreuzberg which became the center of a massive eviction movement by the German state in 2014 but an equally massive resistance of both refugees and their German/international supporters.

A supporter involved in this struggle will explain their story, the strike camp and both it’s occupation and eviction. Afterwards there will be time for discussion about its Australian application, and what it means for the freedom of movement struggle more broadly. Come and hear about this amazing struggle!

Kein mensch ist illegal // No one is illegal!

When: Wednesday 23rd March, 2016
Where: Venue still TBC, West End

All welcome! Free entry!

Brisbane Free University is delighted to present a panel discussion: Queer Health in Queensland. In this conversation we hope to share knowledge of needs and services, and the gaps between the two.

Where: Carpark under the Westpac Bank, 89-91 Boundary St, West End.

When: Wednesday 18th November, 2015, 6:30pm – 8:30pm.

There will be ample discussion time. If anyone has questions or points that you would like raised anonymously, please email them to brisbanefreeuniversity@gmail.com

Our speakers for the evening:

Laura McLeod
Originally hailing from the streets of Brisbane, Laura Mcleod is a provisionally registered Clinical Psychologist studying at James Cook University, Cairns. Her previous research has focused on the complex topic of communicating sexual consent, causing no end of interesting banter/awkward coughing at polite dinner parties. Current her research is focused on the helpful and unhelpful experiences of transgender and non-binary clients seeking psychological support in rural and remote areas of Queensland. Previous research indicates that there is a growing number of people seeking support for non-binary gender identification and a lack of supportive practice in the psychological community.

Brett Mooney
Brett says: I am Murray Islander from the Torres Straits, I have live here in Brisbane for 12 years, 10 of which I have spent working for the 2Spirits Program. 2Spirits delivers SexualHealth Promotion to Gay Men, Bisexual Men, and Sister Girls throughout the state of Queensland. In my spare time I enjoy maintaining my culture and collecting or creating opportunistic moments.

Miranda Sparks
Miranda Sparks is a radio presenter, web author, comedian, poet, playwright and entertainer from the outer suburbs of Brisbane. She is a passionate transgender activist and will engage in conversation at every opportunity presented.

As always, Brisbane Free University is completely free and open to all.

When?      6.30pm, Thursday 29th October, 2015

Where?     Boundary Street, West End

What?
“How Shall We Live Then?” is a panel discussion bringing together perspectives from architecture, sociology and social theory to think about the best ways to live in Brisbane as the city becomes more dense.
The session will explore some of the pressures that cities face and why there is a push for more dense living in cities, and what the risks and benefits of that might be.

All of the speakers come (in some way) from the field of architecture, so the focus will be on different ways that architectural design responds to those pressures, as well as some of the regulations that are being discussed around apartment living in Australia at the moment.

As always, the focus is on robust and inclusive discussion: most of us have experiences of living in cities, we all have stuff to share!

The speakers:

Dr Kelly Greenop teaches design, architectural social science and research in the School of Architecture and conducts research within Aboriginal Environments Research Centre (AERC) and ATCH, Architecture Theory Criticism History research centre, at The University of Queensland. Her research has focused on work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in urban Brisbane, documenting their place experiences and attachment, and the importance of housing, family and country for urban Indigenous people. Kelly has recently published on the place branding of Brisbane as a ‘new world city’ by local authorities, and how local people’s histories and visions for place need to become more prominent in deciding the future of Brisbane’s inner areas.

Amy Learmonth is a graduate architect and designer. She has an interest in public architecture, urban planning, and housing. She recently graduated from the Master of Architecture at UQ with several prestigious accolades, including the QIA Memorial Medallion. Her design research to date includes investigations of alternative housing futures for Brisbane. She has also undertaken research around culturally-appropriate social housing and Queensland’s social housing policy. She has tutored at the UQ School of Architecture around social housing design. Amy currently works at Cox Rayner Architects and Planners. She has lived, studied and practiced architecture in Brisbane, London and Dublin. Her studies in Brisbane and Dublin have also led her to undertake design and research studios with prominent architectural educators in Portugal, Japan, Berlin and Finland. Amy also works with a number of emerging arts collectives in Brisbane, and has collaborated on the design and build of numerous large-scale artworks for various festivals and events around Australia.

Dr. Sébastien Darchen is a Lecturer in Planning at the School of Geography Planning and Environmental Management (University of Queensland, Brisbane). Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies (York University) in Toronto and is still affiliated to this Faculty (as an adjunct professor). He holds a PhD in Urban Studies (INRS-UCS, Montreal) and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Canada Chair of the Socio-Organizational Challenges of the Knowledge Economy (Montreal). He is a faculty member of the City Institute (York University, Toronto). Dr. Darchen’s main research focus is on the governance of urban regeneration using Australian, American (e.g., Los Angeles) and French cities (e.g., Lyon and Paris) as case studies. He coordinates Plan-Making (PLAN3000) at UQ which blends urban planning and feasibility and also Sustainable Communities (PLAN7121). His current research focuses on identifying pathways to lead to the sustainable densification of inner-city suburbs in Brisbane.

Dr Silvia Micheli (PhD, IUAV, Venice) is UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The School of Architecture, The University of Queensland. Silvia holds wide expertise in post-war, postmodern and contemporary Italian architecture and the city, accumulated while teaching and researching at the Polytechnic of Milan between 2003 and 2012. Silvia has actively promoted the debate on contemporary architecture through the publication of books, edited books and journal articles. Silvia is a registered architect in Italy, where she has been practicing since 2004.

As always, our sessions are completely free and open to everyone.

Please join us for a discussion of the reasons for and against both (a) constitutional recognition of First peoples, and (b) the establishment of Indigenous sovereignty.

When: Tuesday July 14th, 6.30 – 8.30 pm

Where: Carpark under the Westpac Bank, 89-91 Boundary St, West End.

Our panelists:

Mark Yettica-Paulson

An Indigenous man from southeast Queensland and northeast NSW regions, Mark is a facilitator and presenter with wide-ranging experience in business, government, education and not-for-profit organisations. In 2009 he was recognised by The Australian as one of the top 100 emerging leaders in Australia and in 2011 he won ABC TV’s Strictly Speaking competition with a speech about having pride in our history and reclaiming a national identity for Australia’s Indigenous people. Currently Mark is the founding Director of The Yettica Group, which specialises in transformational conversation facilitation, social leadership and indigenous engagement. (Bio taken from Social Leadership Australia)

Gordon Chalmers

Gordon Chalmers (BA, JD) is an Associate Lecturer in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at UQ. He has also worked in the government sector on Indigenous land tenure matters. Currently completing his PhD, Gordon is attempting to deconstruct the legal identity of the “Aboriginal Race of Australia” in Australian law, allowing for the possibility of both re-conceptualising and -addressing Indigenous efforts to once again normalize Aboriginal ontologies in Australia.

Darcy Burgin

Darcy is currently writing a Masters thesis in philosophy at UQ on the function of the human body in the constitution of experience. He has a keen interest in the necessary preconditions for the flourishing of an authentically democratic community and their being brought about in Australia. He will speak to the possibility and significance of a shared Australian narrative.

As always, all free / all welcome. Ample discussion time to follow panelists’ presentations.

Ever wondered ‘WTF is a Free University anyway’? Ever thought that BFU couldn’t get much more meta? Come along to our next session, when we’ll explore the political potentials of free universities across time and space!

When: Thursday the 25th of June, 6.30 pm – 8.30 pm

Where: The carpark under the Westpac Bank, 89-91 Boundary St, West End.

The Speakers:
Laura Nelson is a Ph.D. student studying historical and contemporary models of radical education around the world, focusing on the free universities and liberation schools of the 1960s and 1970s in North America, Europe, and Australia. She is interested in the creative ways people have harnessed their critiques of formal universities and schools to imagine and form community-based spaces for learning and political action.

Fern Thompsett might be better known to many as one of the founders and organisers of BFU. However, she spent 6 months last year travelling through Canada, the US and Mexico, interviewing other free university and radical education activists, from student strikers in Montreal to Zapatistas in Chiapas. She has since been writing on the potentials of free universities as radical anti-capitalist projects, and as hatcheries for alternative political imaginaries.

The session will include ample open discussion time.

As always, all free / all welcome.

When?  Tuesday 26th May, 6.30pm

Where? Carpark under Westpac Bank, 89-91 Boundary St, West End

What?

Join local artists, art theorists and philosophers Nicola Scott, Aleea Monsour and Tara Heffernan in a discussion on feminism in art and revisionist art histories.

Nicola Scott is an arts writer and former producer of the nationally-distributed No Brow Art Show based in Brisbane at 4zzz. She is currently researching prior to commencing a PhD. She completed an Honours degree at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith Uni , and is particularly interested in institutional critique, feminist theory, and the relationship between capitalism, power and subjectivity. She will speak about “Revisionist histories: Feminism and contemporary Australian art.”

Tara Heffernan completed a bachelor of fine art with Honours at Griffith, South Bank in 2012. She has worked with various Artist Run Initiatives in Brisbane including performance art collective Exist and InHouse and contributes to numerous art publications. Her research rotates around issues of authenticity, representation, gender and identity. She will present a paper titled ‘Sanitise, Homogenise, Vaporise’. The paper considers a number of contemporary artists concerned with identity politics, with particular emphasis on the video work of Duncan Campbell, and the multi-media work of Franco and Eva Mattes. This paper will consider how artists interrogate mediums of representation in contemporary art, particularly in relation to gendered representations with a focus on the formulaic nature of these critiques and their canonical significance.

Aleea Monsour is a performer, designer, collaborator, aspiring director and community theatre practitioner.She is currently undertaking an Honours project, creating an original verbatim theatre piece based on personal interviews conducted with Palestinian women who have immigrated to Brisbane. In this presentation, Aleea will explore the agency of art and theatre to create personal and communal change through the perspective of voice and stories of women, considering theatrical and oral history as a research methodology in order to create a space for marginalised voices.

As usual, all are welcome to join in the conversation.

Richard Hil is Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Human Services and Social Work at Griffith University (Gold Coast), and co-founder of the Ngara Institute. He’s also a great friend and supporter of Brisbane Free University. We’re delighted to have him along to our beloved car park to talk about his new book: “Selling Students Short: Why you won’t get the university education you deserve.”

Selling Students Short takes a wry yet disturbing look at the vagaries of Australia university system – this time from the perspective of students. Richard catalogues a range of problems experienced by both domestic and international students that contrast markedly with the frothy blurb and blue sky promises peddled by university marketing divisions. But the sorry state of our universities is not simply about the gap between promise and reality: it’s a troubling insight into the nature of neoliberal higher education and its preoccupation with vocationalism, credentialism, performance and, above all, income generation. Sadly, in many cases, students do not get the full, rounded and critically oriented education they deserve, or an education that is likely to make them better informed and more active, democratic citizens. But many will end up with long term debt, in jobs unrelated to their degrees, and with memories of an education typified by its drab functionality.

These issues are dear to BFU’s heart! Everyone is welcome to join us. The event will be, as ever, free.

When: Tuesday May 12th, 6.30 – 8.30 pm.

Where: Carpark under Westpac Bank, 89-91 Boundary Street, West End.

BFU is excited to present and promote the great work being done by Melbourne based organisation, Undercurrent Community Education Project.

Undercurrent Community Education Project is a non-profit organisation focused on challenging and preventing violence in relationships, with a particular focus on violence against women, family violence and sexual assault. They currently facilitate violence prevention workshops with high schools, community groups, Universities and various organisations. Undercurrent’s projects are informed by transformative justice, prison abolition and a feminist philosophy. In the past they have been involved in attempts to develop and operate community-based response processes to instances of domestic and sexual violence using restorative and transformative justice frameworks, as an alternative to the criminal justice and prison systems. Undercurrent aim to support people who have experienced or are experiencing violence, to challenge gendered attitudes in society, and to promote respectful and non-violent relationships in the community.

Learn more here: http://undercurrentvic.com/

Thursday night’s session will be presented by Ani. Ani was one of the people who started Undercurrent Community Education Project. She has been a co-director of Undercurrent for three and a half years and was involved in a respectful relationships education program with South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault for two years prior to that. She has been involved in transformative justice and community accountability projects and discussions for a number of years, including A World Without Sexual Assault, a collective around from 2007-2009 that participated in community accountability processes and ran workshops around gendered violence, support and consent predominantly within activist, queer and punk communities.

All welcome, all free.

When: Thursday April 23rd, 6.30 – 8.30 pm.

Where: Carpark under Westpac Bank, 89-91 Boundary Street, West End.

When?  6.30pm, Wednesday 1 April

Where?  Carpark under Westpac Bank, 89-91 Boundary Street, West End.

What? Rethinking the Future of Design

In this session, designers Chenoa Pettrup, Bec Barnett, Lennah Kuskoff, Christine Moulder and Tristan Shulz will explore the role that design has played in the development and maintenance of the unsustainable world that we inhabit. By recognising design as contributive to global unsettlement and unsustainability, serious discussions are developing about what constitutes a responsible design practice. One future for design will be explored through discussion on design as a ‘redirective practice’.

We will explain redirective practice via a case study that critiques the Queensland Plan and its failure to recognise the future scenario’s Queensland is facing. Redirective practice aims to raise the level of debate around those measures of success that are ignoring, or adhering to defuturing conditions of structural unsustainability. This unsustainability is clearly present in SEQ and the wider Asia-Pacific region, manifesting in forms such as climate change, climate refugees, long-term viability of agriculture and the effects of globalisation. All are in need of mitigation, adaptation and/or redirection at not just technical, but social, cultural, economic and ontological levels; that is at levels of questioning our very mode of being-in-the-world.

Through the Queensland Plan case study we will provide examples of the design thinking and strategic methods we have used to begin designing future scenarios where Queensland takes future challenges into broader consideration. In this, design (whether as redirective practice or in its traditional instrumentally perceived mode) is recognised as a political act, one that cannot escape agency.

About the speakers:

Chenoa Pettrup is a freelance graphic designer, Design Lounge Coordinator for the Asia Pacific Design Library at the State Library of Queensland and a tutor in the Visual Communication Design department at Griffith University’s Queensland College of Art.

Bec Barnett is a designer, researcher and upholster she currently works as a lecturer and tutor in the Design Futures program at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.

Lennah Kuskoff is a designer, educator and food enthusiast, she works as an instructor and tutor in the Design Futures program at Griffith University’s Queensland College of Art.

Christine Moulder is a designer and researcher as well as a tutor in the Design Futures program at Griffith University’s Queensland College of Art and course coordinator at the Queensland Institute of Business and Technology.

Tristan Schultz is an interdisciplinary designer, researcher and Convenor of Visual Communication Design in the Design Futures Program at QCA, Griffith University. Tristan is currently a panel member of the Australia Council for the Arts as an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Strategy Panel Member.

This is an open, inclusive and family-friendly event. All welcome!

On Thursday 5th March, Brisbane Free University presents Music, Language and Creativity: a session about music and creativity in the everyday.

Rob Davidson is a lecturer in music at the University of Queensland, a composer and a musician. In this session, he shows how music is a part of everyday speech. For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpavaM62Fgo

This is an interactive session. Rob involves the audience in a bunch of workshop-style examples to show how our voices are already being used as instruments.

As usual, the sessions are open to everyone and completely free.