Two days ago, I arrived in Melbourne, Australia, after an insane 30-hours of travel, to the generous hospitality of Oliver Vodeb of Memefest and his lovely family. We’re now at Swinburne University setting up for the extradisciplinary symposium/workshop/direct action that starts tomorrow, tied to this year’s theme of Radical Intimacies. It’s quite hard to get a handle on the fact that I’m now halfway across the world, having conversations about radical design practice with Oliver again, conversations that we’re continuing from the last time we met up in the Netherlands almost 4 years ago. Plus ça change…
I’m very honoured to be here, presenting amongst an impressive international crew of communications experts, activists, and artists. I’m particularly excited to be working with Memefest and members of BASE (the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign embassy), and look forward to learning about the aboriginal context of resistance here. BASE was instrumental in organising against the G20 summit in Brisbane last week, and I’m hoping to be able to lend my skills to their struggle, and will certainly be bringing some powerful knowledge back home.
My presentation will address ideas around material culture and resistance, with a particular focus on the Quebec Student Strike of 2012. It feels good to be able to share knowledge drawn from our local movements and moments of social upheaval, and I hope it will be relevant here, and spark an interesting dialogue. I’m also happy that I had the opportunity to meet up with Decolonizing Street Art before leaving Montreal, and that I managed to bring some amnazing gifts from them to communities here.
Everyone I’ve met so far has been fantastic. It’s been great to reconnect with Tom Liacas, a culture jamming collaborator from way back in the day (circa. 2001). I’ll be here for another 8-days, and will try to keep the blog updated, or at the very least, I’ll be posting frequently on LOKI’s facebook page.
PS. Unlike the G20 leaders, I have yet to find any koalas. Those bastards always take everything first…
