WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.860 . 2 00:00:09.600 --> 00:00:11.000 . 3 00:00:17.060 --> 00:00:18.460 . 4 00:00:18.460 --> 00:00:18.480 . 5 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:20.540 . 6 00:00:20.540 --> 00:00:21.460 . 7 00:00:30.680 --> 00:00:32.080 . 8 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:33.680 . 9 00:00:33.680 --> 00:00:34.240 . 10 00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:34.280 . 11 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:53.480 . 12 00:00:59.660 --> 00:01:01.060 . 13 00:01:01.060 --> 00:01:01.560 . 14 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:02.600 . 15 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:02.940 . 16 00:01:02.940 --> 00:01:02.960 . 17 00:01:21.160 --> 00:01:22.560 . 18 00:01:30.580 --> 00:01:31.980 . 19 00:01:34.700 --> 00:01:36.100 . 20 00:01:36.100 --> 00:01:36.160 . 21 00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:36.240 . 22 00:01:36.240 --> 00:01:36.260 . 23 00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:51.900 . 24 00:02:00.080 --> 00:02:01.480 . 25 00:02:01.480 --> 00:02:02.400 . 26 00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:02.820 . 27 00:02:02.820 --> 00:02:02.860 . 28 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:12.860 . 29 00:02:21.600 --> 00:02:23.000 . 30 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:23.680 . 31 00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:23.720 . 32 00:02:23.720 --> 00:02:24.040 . 33 00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:25.420 . 34 00:02:40.940 --> 00:02:41.660 . 35 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:44.400 . 36 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:47.720 . 37 00:02:49.300 --> 00:02:50.020 . 38 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:50.060 . 39 00:02:50.060 --> 00:02:50.420 . 40 00:02:50.420 --> 00:02:50.500 . 41 00:02:50.500 --> 00:02:50.540 . 42 00:02:50.540 --> 00:02:50.660 . 43 00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:55.520 . 44 00:02:55.520 --> 00:02:55.680 . 45 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:03.040 . 46 00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:03.060 . 47 00:03:17.240 --> 00:03:17.280 . 48 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:17.300 . 49 00:03:17.300 --> 00:03:17.320 . 50 00:03:17.320 --> 00:03:17.340 . 51 00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:18.100 . 52 00:03:19.320 --> 00:03:19.340 . 53 00:03:26.900 --> 00:03:27.620 . 54 00:03:27.620 --> 00:03:27.640 . 55 00:03:27.640 --> 00:03:28.340 . 56 00:03:28.340 --> 00:03:28.380 . 57 00:03:28.380 --> 00:03:28.440 . 58 00:03:28.440 --> 00:03:28.500 . 59 00:03:28.500 --> 00:03:29.100 . 60 00:03:29.100 --> 00:03:29.180 . 61 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:30.640 . 62 00:03:30.640 --> 00:03:31.640 . 63 00:03:32.940 --> 00:03:33.660 . 64 00:03:33.660 --> 00:03:33.700 . 65 00:03:33.700 --> 00:03:33.740 . 66 00:03:33.740 --> 00:03:34.880 . 67 00:03:34.880 --> 00:03:34.920 . 68 00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:35.160 . 69 00:03:35.160 --> 00:03:35.260 . 70 00:03:35.260 --> 00:03:35.620 . 71 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:35.640 . 72 00:03:35.640 --> 00:03:35.660 . 73 00:03:35.660 --> 00:03:36.060 . 74 00:03:36.060 --> 00:03:36.580 . 75 00:03:38.340 --> 00:03:39.060 . 76 00:03:39.060 --> 00:03:40.960 Mostly working with young folk, 77 00:03:41.140 --> 00:03:43.700 and we'll talk a little bit about that during the course of today, 78 00:03:43.860 --> 00:03:47.520 but I also work with my brother and my friend, Carl. 79 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:49.580 Hello. 80 00:03:51.440 --> 00:03:51.840 Hello. 81 00:03:53.040 --> 00:03:53.440 Namani. 82 00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:56.300 Supposed to say, Marni, hi. 83 00:03:58.900 --> 00:03:59.300 What? 84 00:03:59.660 --> 00:04:01.780 No, that's another language. I'll leave that one out for now. 85 00:04:05.640 --> 00:04:07.460 Well, yes, I guess it's my turn. 86 00:04:08.340 --> 00:04:15.200 Well, I've been here, I guess, from the first sunrise. 87 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:23.680 My blood relationship to country has been in here since the beginning. 88 00:04:25.080 --> 00:04:30.500 But I guess growing up in my home, 89 00:04:31.420 --> 00:04:32.640 well, away from my true home, 90 00:04:34.300 --> 00:04:37.240 and living through the experience of home, 91 00:04:38.540 --> 00:04:40.480 through my mother's experience, 92 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:45.320 and my grandfathers and grandmothers and grandfathers and grandmothers before them, 93 00:04:46.300 --> 00:04:51.020 really since 1836, being removed from home, 94 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:53.720 taken away from home, 95 00:04:55.660 --> 00:04:57.520 and not really knowing why. 96 00:05:00.900 --> 00:05:02.340 So, I guess, 97 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:07.100 as my mum likes to call it, being a survivor of the Holocaust, 98 00:05:07.460 --> 00:05:07.860 which she said, 99 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:11.000 that swept across Australia. 100 00:05:13.540 --> 00:05:17.060 And you probably guessed by now, my mum's a bit of an activist, 101 00:05:18.580 --> 00:05:20.540 involved in politics, 102 00:05:22.340 --> 00:05:23.220 but always, 103 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:26.480 and she got it from really her mum, my nana, 104 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:28.160 Malamay. 105 00:05:28.580 --> 00:05:31.680 That's her name, traditional name, from over the country, 106 00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:34.960 which means dry food, so. 107 00:05:35.780 --> 00:05:36.220 But, 108 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:38.000 yeah, 109 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:41.000 and talking about that, we've just been coming home, 110 00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:42.140 coming back, 111 00:05:43.100 --> 00:05:45.440 to know ourselves on this side here, 112 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:47.300 which my papa spoke about, 113 00:05:49.140 --> 00:05:50.260 before he passed away. 114 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:53.680 So I've been lucky in that sense to receive the stories, 115 00:05:55.500 --> 00:05:55.900 because, 116 00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:00.920 I was always dislocated, 117 00:06:02.220 --> 00:06:03.720 but I knew the word abo, 118 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:06.120 because I grew up with it. 119 00:06:08.460 --> 00:06:08.900 But, 120 00:06:10.220 --> 00:06:11.140 what we do now, 121 00:06:12.640 --> 00:06:14.480 with my brother here, as he said, Yunga, 122 00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:15.500 Yardlow Yunga, 123 00:06:15.580 --> 00:06:17.220 that's what I say for brother, 124 00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:19.800 is teach little people, 125 00:06:20.340 --> 00:06:21.560 because they're more receptive, 126 00:06:22.880 --> 00:06:25.480 to responding to understanding the land itself, 127 00:06:26.180 --> 00:06:27.380 and where we all come from. 128 00:06:27.940 --> 00:06:28.840 And our connection, 129 00:06:29.400 --> 00:06:31.020 to the elements you see right here. 130 00:06:32.280 --> 00:06:35.500 One of the great lessons for me, 131 00:06:35.520 --> 00:06:37.440 in working with Carl, is, 132 00:06:37.440 --> 00:06:40.420 that middle aged white fella, 133 00:06:40.520 --> 00:06:41.240 and, 134 00:06:42.700 --> 00:06:45.720 we know in a dystopian Trump world, 135 00:06:45.940 --> 00:06:47.640 they're quite angry people. 136 00:06:48.660 --> 00:06:49.240 And, 137 00:06:49.340 --> 00:06:50.420 one of the real, 138 00:06:51.020 --> 00:06:52.960 angry is possibly not the right word. 139 00:06:53.280 --> 00:06:53.860 But, 140 00:06:55.220 --> 00:06:57.120 they're an odd group. 141 00:06:58.080 --> 00:06:59.160 One of the, 142 00:06:59.340 --> 00:07:01.240 and people often talk about, 143 00:07:01.580 --> 00:07:02.880 and I remember when, 144 00:07:03.020 --> 00:07:03.820 you know, 145 00:07:03.840 --> 00:07:06.800 land rights and things like treaties are talked about, 146 00:07:06.820 --> 00:07:07.100 it's like, 147 00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:09.840 middle aged white folk think, 148 00:07:10.080 --> 00:07:10.700 oh my goodness, 149 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:11.780 we're going to lose our homes, 150 00:07:11.880 --> 00:07:12.600 we're going to lose this. 151 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:13.760 It's like, no you're not. 152 00:07:13.860 --> 00:07:14.940 You're actually going to gain, 153 00:07:15.580 --> 00:07:16.680 a whole insight, 154 00:07:17.280 --> 00:07:19.320 into the culture that is here. 155 00:07:20.080 --> 00:07:21.500 But, you're also going to learn, 156 00:07:21.620 --> 00:07:22.520 if you walk, 157 00:07:23.980 --> 00:07:25.560 beside my friend Carl, 158 00:07:26.260 --> 00:07:26.740 and, 159 00:07:27.880 --> 00:07:29.260 with shared footsteps, 160 00:07:29.660 --> 00:07:31.980 you also have an opportunity to learn, 161 00:07:32.060 --> 00:07:33.680 about your own culture. 162 00:07:34.280 --> 00:07:37.360 And, so, Carl and I have known each other for 15 years, 163 00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:38.900 we first did a show at the Botanic Gardens, 164 00:07:39.060 --> 00:07:40.800 sort of, 14, 15 years ago. 165 00:07:41.060 --> 00:07:42.420 And, we've always talked about, 166 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:43.860 yep, we'll do some more stuff. 167 00:07:44.340 --> 00:07:45.680 And, then a couple of years ago, 168 00:07:45.740 --> 00:07:46.500 18 months ago, 169 00:07:46.700 --> 00:07:48.200 the opportunity arose. 170 00:07:49.240 --> 00:07:51.200 And, it was really, really important, 171 00:07:51.740 --> 00:07:55.140 in the creative process for us, 172 00:07:57.220 --> 00:07:59.080 that this was a shared journey. 173 00:07:59.460 --> 00:08:02.620 It was really, really important to understand that, 174 00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:04.800 from a Western cultural point of view, 175 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:07.340 intellectual property is a very difficult, 176 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:07.980 different thing, 177 00:08:07.980 --> 00:08:10.500 to being the custodian of story. 178 00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:15.480 And, so, the creative process needed to take those things into account. 179 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:20.020 And, it worked because we've known each other for as long as we have. 180 00:08:20.340 --> 00:08:21.820 And, because we trust each other. 181 00:08:21.900 --> 00:08:22.960 And, because he is my brother. 182 00:08:24.900 --> 00:08:26.700 One of the great lessons, I think, 183 00:08:27.220 --> 00:08:29.300 for me, as I alluded to before, 184 00:08:29.520 --> 00:08:31.860 is that, when we do our shows, 185 00:08:31.940 --> 00:08:32.960 we often get folks going, 186 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:34.900 because I talk about my ancestors, 187 00:08:35.620 --> 00:08:36.900 I talk about the fact that it's like, 188 00:08:36.900 --> 00:08:37.780 oh, hang on a minute, 189 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:39.180 that's right, 190 00:08:39.400 --> 00:08:40.660 I go back and, 191 00:08:40.700 --> 00:08:41.480 four grandparents, 192 00:08:41.780 --> 00:08:43.500 English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh, 193 00:08:44.380 --> 00:08:45.640 what's their story? 194 00:08:46.160 --> 00:08:48.100 In order to come home properly, 195 00:08:48.340 --> 00:08:50.960 because this is home for me, 196 00:08:52.160 --> 00:08:54.600 but I needed to understand that much more 197 00:08:54.600 --> 00:08:57.660 than I did before Carl and I went on this journey. 198 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:00.400 So, I think it's a really powerful 199 00:09:02.140 --> 00:09:04.000 thing to be able to talk to kids, 200 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:04.980 and adults, 201 00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:06.760 and to be able to say, 202 00:09:06.900 --> 00:09:07.720 you know, 203 00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:09.100 hey, middle-aged white fella, 204 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:10.480 you've got ancestors, 205 00:09:10.580 --> 00:09:12.740 and you can learn about those, 206 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:14.960 and that actually adds to your story, 207 00:09:15.560 --> 00:09:17.500 and you can do that by better understanding 208 00:09:17.500 --> 00:09:20.880 the story of the original inhabitants of this land. 209 00:09:23.220 --> 00:09:24.260 Yeah, caretakers, eh? 210 00:09:24.340 --> 00:09:24.860 In a way. 211 00:09:27.340 --> 00:09:28.440 Just in saying that, 212 00:09:28.460 --> 00:09:30.520 and talking about those sorts of things, 213 00:09:31.680 --> 00:09:34.600 it's really important that we do share those, 214 00:09:34.680 --> 00:09:35.720 come together, 215 00:09:36.340 --> 00:09:37.220 bi-culturally, 216 00:09:38.260 --> 00:09:39.140 you know, 217 00:09:39.140 --> 00:09:40.100 through ways of understanding, 218 00:09:40.340 --> 00:09:41.640 and I guess ways of thinking, 219 00:09:44.660 --> 00:09:46.840 because it's about that feeling of knowing where 220 00:09:47.980 --> 00:09:50.100 that sacred string of your time 221 00:09:50.100 --> 00:09:51.640 and your line has come from. 222 00:09:52.540 --> 00:09:54.360 Just like the story when the sun rises, 223 00:09:54.380 --> 00:09:55.340 when she's up, 224 00:09:55.420 --> 00:09:58.140 ready to start the day, 225 00:09:59.020 --> 00:10:01.380 and the cheeky daughter is there, 226 00:10:01.500 --> 00:10:02.340 and she's coming, 227 00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:03.680 you know, that star, you know? 228 00:10:04.340 --> 00:10:05.700 Hurry up, hurry up, come on. 229 00:10:05.700 --> 00:10:05.980 Come on, come on. 230 00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:08.420 And before that sun rises, 231 00:10:08.420 --> 00:10:09.300 that string is there, 232 00:10:10.420 --> 00:10:11.060 that connection, 233 00:10:12.680 --> 00:10:14.340 and that connects all the way across 234 00:10:15.020 --> 00:10:17.140 as the sun travels all the way through the day. 235 00:10:18.060 --> 00:10:19.360 And then she goes into her wadling 236 00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:20.540 and sits there and eats the fish then, 237 00:10:20.580 --> 00:10:21.280 because that's what she's doing, 238 00:10:21.340 --> 00:10:22.020 fishing with her daughter. 239 00:10:22.060 --> 00:10:23.420 Her daughter's hungry, see, all the time. 240 00:10:24.400 --> 00:10:25.180 But anyway, I just, 241 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:29.180 back to talking about my mother, in a way. 242 00:10:32.460 --> 00:10:34.540 She wasn't just a political activist, 243 00:10:34.540 --> 00:10:36.240 and all of that and everything else. 244 00:10:37.900 --> 00:10:38.720 But I tell you, 245 00:10:38.760 --> 00:10:42.640 she's pretty remarkable in a sense. 246 00:10:44.560 --> 00:10:45.860 Yeah, she's survived, 247 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:49.300 and, you know, coming off of the mission, 248 00:10:51.420 --> 00:10:53.640 having to come into the city and stuff like that, 249 00:10:53.760 --> 00:10:56.060 and growing up with us kids and stuff like that. 250 00:10:56.160 --> 00:10:58.620 So I guess, you know, without her I wouldn't be here. 251 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:01.260 But the whole process of that 252 00:11:01.260 --> 00:11:04.520 is her reminding me of where I come from, 253 00:11:04.520 --> 00:11:07.860 where I, who I am. 254 00:11:08.800 --> 00:11:10.740 And that was always walking the country, 255 00:11:11.400 --> 00:11:12.740 going out on country barefoot, 256 00:11:13.480 --> 00:11:14.920 know this place, feel this place, 257 00:11:15.060 --> 00:11:16.380 sit down there and be quiet, listen. 258 00:11:16.900 --> 00:11:18.000 Who's that talking to you? 259 00:11:18.500 --> 00:11:19.220 Can you hear it? 260 00:11:19.780 --> 00:11:20.400 You feel it? 261 00:11:21.060 --> 00:11:21.720 Feel the wind. 262 00:11:24.460 --> 00:11:25.800 So, I just wanted to read this, 263 00:11:25.820 --> 00:11:26.860 and I won't read it as good as her. 264 00:11:27.700 --> 00:11:28.820 But this is one of her, 265 00:11:28.980 --> 00:11:30.600 well, she's a poet as well. 266 00:11:31.300 --> 00:11:32.520 I'll try to get her to write more, 267 00:11:32.700 --> 00:11:34.500 but she's always had a lot of fun. 268 00:11:34.520 --> 00:11:35.120 Having to run around, 269 00:11:36.040 --> 00:11:39.060 looking after a lot of people, 270 00:11:39.240 --> 00:11:41.440 because even in our family, 271 00:11:41.480 --> 00:11:42.580 like many Aboriginal families, 272 00:11:45.140 --> 00:11:46.400 we're all touched with 273 00:11:49.500 --> 00:11:50.460 imprisonment, incarceration, 274 00:11:52.020 --> 00:11:52.500 dislocation, 275 00:11:54.120 --> 00:11:54.920 demoralised in a way. 276 00:11:55.080 --> 00:11:58.100 You know, we've got big problems with drug and alcohol 277 00:11:58.100 --> 00:12:01.160 and family issues and not having anywhere to live 278 00:12:01.160 --> 00:12:02.520 and all those sorts of things. 279 00:12:03.560 --> 00:12:04.640 So she does that, 280 00:12:04.660 --> 00:12:05.800 as well as all these other things. 281 00:12:05.900 --> 00:12:08.120 So, you know, talk about Mother Therese as well. 282 00:12:10.640 --> 00:12:12.260 But this one here is called Coming Home, 283 00:12:12.400 --> 00:12:15.440 and she dedicated this to Kutunadu. 284 00:12:17.500 --> 00:12:18.380 What about... 285 00:12:18.380 --> 00:12:19.560 No, I was going to say, yeah. 286 00:12:20.920 --> 00:12:21.880 I'm an old spirit, 287 00:12:22.920 --> 00:12:24.420 born to this new world, 288 00:12:25.460 --> 00:12:27.000 taken from my place to die, 289 00:12:27.180 --> 00:12:28.520 stripped and beaten, 290 00:12:29.300 --> 00:12:30.480 my land you claimed, 291 00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:32.500 and called your own. 292 00:12:33.660 --> 00:12:34.580 Old spirit, 293 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:36.480 red earth. 294 00:12:38.500 --> 00:12:39.760 Narangana is my name. 295 00:12:40.780 --> 00:12:42.240 Yes, I'm an old spirit. 296 00:12:43.040 --> 00:12:44.980 Sporn today in this new form. 297 00:12:46.040 --> 00:12:47.760 Before I was here, 298 00:12:47.900 --> 00:12:49.120 I slept in peace. 299 00:12:50.280 --> 00:12:52.720 Buried deep, I seed my mother's girth. 300 00:12:53.880 --> 00:12:55.880 Old spirit, red earth. 301 00:12:57.040 --> 00:12:58.060 Ravaged and torn, 302 00:12:58.860 --> 00:13:00.060 weary and worn, 303 00:13:00.680 --> 00:13:02.180 she laboured in my birth. 304 00:13:03.400 --> 00:13:05.400 Then to her bosom I was drawn. 305 00:13:06.120 --> 00:13:07.520 Tenderly she suckled me. 306 00:13:08.620 --> 00:13:10.800 Old spirit, red earth. 307 00:13:11.700 --> 00:13:13.140 Now I feel the pain. 308 00:13:14.580 --> 00:13:17.060 Fear, anxious upon my face appear. 309 00:13:17.920 --> 00:13:19.320 What was I born for? 310 00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:21.600 What must I die for? 311 00:13:22.840 --> 00:13:25.280 I labour on where time stands still. 312 00:13:26.700 --> 00:13:29.760 Yet always I am born anew. 313 00:13:30.780 --> 00:13:32.880 Old spirit, red earth. 314 00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:35.440 Silent in the night, 315 00:13:35.560 --> 00:13:37.020 my father gave his seed. 316 00:13:37.880 --> 00:13:40.020 To lie in wait, to germinate. 317 00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:43.200 Old spirit, red earth. 318 00:13:44.140 --> 00:13:46.520 Out of the dust of these old bones I rose. 319 00:13:47.280 --> 00:13:48.660 My silence shattered 320 00:13:49.480 --> 00:13:50.760 by the clanging neon light. 321 00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:54.620 In full circle I bear this child anew. 322 00:13:56.860 --> 00:13:58.320 Narangana, his name. 323 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:04.060 So I just want to thank you. 324 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:06.280 I just... 325 00:14:08.020 --> 00:14:10.800 As we touched on before, 326 00:14:10.920 --> 00:14:13.920 normally we work with young folk 327 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:18.220 and reasonably young, 328 00:14:18.420 --> 00:14:22.060 so I think, compared with us... 329 00:14:22.060 --> 00:14:27.340 I'm thinking if we do a couple of things 330 00:14:28.700 --> 00:14:29.940 from that show, 331 00:14:30.140 --> 00:14:33.020 and the nature of the show... 332 00:14:33.660 --> 00:14:36.040 So I also work with kids a lot 333 00:14:36.040 --> 00:14:39.080 and sing about dinosaurs and stuff. 334 00:14:39.680 --> 00:14:41.500 Why Australian dinosaurs, by the way? 335 00:14:41.820 --> 00:14:43.220 Because they're our dinosaurs. 336 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:45.640 It's not about T-Rex, it's not about... 337 00:14:45.640 --> 00:14:46.860 I mean, all the other dinosaurs are cool, 338 00:14:47.020 --> 00:14:49.400 but here in Australia we have some pretty cool 339 00:14:49.400 --> 00:14:50.660 prehistoric creatures as well, 340 00:14:50.800 --> 00:14:52.700 which is also a part of our story. 341 00:14:52.820 --> 00:14:55.140 So I digress. 342 00:14:55.980 --> 00:14:56.420 But... 343 00:14:57.340 --> 00:14:58.360 So it's interactive. 344 00:14:58.540 --> 00:15:02.240 So there will be things singing for you to do. 345 00:15:02.500 --> 00:15:04.660 So do you want to do yours first? 346 00:15:04.840 --> 00:15:05.380 Yeah, all right. 347 00:15:06.100 --> 00:15:10.060 This is a song that was written in... 348 00:15:10.060 --> 00:15:12.680 Like, the recovering of all was written in the first... 349 00:15:13.280 --> 00:15:16.180 Taken from the first recordings of our language. 350 00:15:17.860 --> 00:15:21.420 The most extensive language that was recorded 351 00:15:21.420 --> 00:15:23.700 was by the Lutherans, Toleman and Sherman, 352 00:15:24.400 --> 00:15:26.540 and Closer and other people like that. 353 00:15:26.540 --> 00:15:28.600 I actually met their ancestors when I went to Germany, 354 00:15:28.640 --> 00:15:29.960 which was pretty amazing. 355 00:15:32.560 --> 00:15:33.000 And... 356 00:15:34.300 --> 00:15:36.420 The language was being... 357 00:15:37.300 --> 00:15:38.020 You know... 358 00:15:39.400 --> 00:15:41.700 I guess, renewed in a way, 359 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:44.240 just like this other story, but just like other things as well. 360 00:15:44.700 --> 00:15:47.080 And it was being spoken again. 361 00:15:48.220 --> 00:15:49.320 We knew words. 362 00:15:49.320 --> 00:15:53.440 We grew up with words from a lot of different areas 363 00:15:53.440 --> 00:15:55.460 because Ngarrindidi are not far from here. 364 00:15:56.540 --> 00:15:57.300 Other followers too, 365 00:15:57.460 --> 00:15:59.880 Aseer, Naurunga and Ait Dematna. 366 00:16:00.040 --> 00:16:01.640 And there's very... 367 00:16:01.640 --> 00:16:03.160 A lot of similarities with the language, 368 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:03.960 but different as well. 369 00:16:05.020 --> 00:16:06.640 So this little song here, 370 00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:08.900 come out of the school down there, 371 00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:09.800 going to Plains, 372 00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:11.220 where I used to go down there and work, 373 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:13.760 and sit down with the fire with the little people out the front, 374 00:16:14.680 --> 00:16:17.400 when there wasn't any nice, you know, bush tucker gardens 375 00:16:17.400 --> 00:16:18.140 they've got everywhere now. 376 00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:20.080 They call them bush tucker garden, you know. 377 00:16:21.380 --> 00:16:23.520 But that's more of a connection for everyone. 378 00:16:23.580 --> 00:16:25.460 It's like a healing space, you know, 379 00:16:25.500 --> 00:16:26.520 because you reconnect with it. 380 00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:28.600 You make that way back to the natural world. 381 00:16:30.140 --> 00:16:31.500 So what we do with this one, 382 00:16:33.580 --> 00:16:35.460 we sort of like it's a sing back song. 383 00:16:36.140 --> 00:16:36.760 So I'll say, 384 00:16:37.700 --> 00:16:38.060 Kumapeleji. 385 00:16:39.620 --> 00:16:39.980 Kumapeleji. 386 00:16:40.280 --> 00:16:41.580 Not you, you know it. 387 00:16:42.020 --> 00:16:43.360 Yeah, no, I'm helping them. 388 00:16:43.540 --> 00:16:44.180 Oh, you're helping them. 389 00:16:44.380 --> 00:16:44.640 Oh, okay. 390 00:16:45.740 --> 00:16:46.600 It's follow, true. 391 00:16:47.040 --> 00:16:48.680 You always got to remind the young followers, don't you? 392 00:16:49.260 --> 00:16:49.620 Makaran? 393 00:16:49.800 --> 00:16:50.240 Yeah, young. 394 00:16:50.540 --> 00:16:51.300 Young followers. 395 00:16:51.560 --> 00:16:52.140 Come on then. 396 00:16:53.160 --> 00:16:54.440 So we do like that then and we go, 397 00:16:55.380 --> 00:16:55.740 Kumapeleji. 398 00:17:09.800 --> 00:17:10.920 Welcome 399 00:17:26.520 --> 00:17:28.360 right until the end where 400 00:17:28.860 --> 00:17:30.340 Carl does, so you do it. 401 00:17:30.460 --> 00:17:31.520 Until I grab my spear. 402 00:17:31.880 --> 00:17:34.300 He chases me. So say it 403 00:17:34.300 --> 00:17:35.420 and I'll do the thing. 404 00:17:36.320 --> 00:17:37.980 And we usually use the clap sticks too. 405 00:17:38.380 --> 00:17:39.160 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 406 00:17:39.400 --> 00:17:41.680 Because this song here is just talking about the kids accounting. 407 00:17:42.660 --> 00:17:44.040 Accounting, you know, it's like the same way. 408 00:17:44.100 --> 00:17:45.900 So we bring that educational way in that way 409 00:17:45.900 --> 00:17:48.060 but bringing our understanding of that 410 00:17:48.480 --> 00:17:49.480 to a western way. 411 00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:51.440 And we have the kids get up. 412 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:52.560 Yeah. 413 00:17:52.860 --> 00:17:54.660 No, 414 00:17:54.660 --> 00:17:55.460 sit down. 415 00:17:55.540 --> 00:17:58.820 I don't think everyone will come here to pay 416 00:17:58.820 --> 00:17:59.640 to stand up. 417 00:17:59.780 --> 00:18:01.280 Oh no, just stand up. 418 00:18:01.480 --> 00:18:02.180 Yeah, alright, come on. 419 00:18:03.600 --> 00:18:04.460 All we do is 420 00:18:05.240 --> 00:18:07.220 just admire it there. So if you want to have a little 421 00:18:07.220 --> 00:18:08.160 clap along. 422 00:18:08.920 --> 00:18:09.900 Maybe just let him. 423 00:18:14.020 --> 00:18:14.820 Kuma pelaji. 424 00:18:15.040 --> 00:18:16.320 Kuma pelaji. 425 00:18:17.100 --> 00:18:17.500 Mankuchi. 426 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:18.840 Mankuchi. 427 00:18:20.460 --> 00:18:20.860 Yarabola. 428 00:18:22.040 --> 00:18:22.440 Yarabola. 429 00:18:23.180 --> 00:18:23.900 Yarabola kuma. 430 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:24.640 Yarabola. 431 00:18:24.660 --> 00:18:25.460 Yarabola kuma. 432 00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:27.200 Yarabola pelaji. 433 00:18:27.860 --> 00:18:28.660 Yarabola pelaji. 434 00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:31.240 Awababulu babalabam. 435 00:18:34.080 --> 00:18:34.640 Babababulu babalabam. 436 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:34.900 Babababulu babalabam. 437 00:18:35.880 --> 00:18:36.680 Babababulu babalabam. 438 00:18:37.540 --> 00:18:37.940 Babababulu babalabam. 439 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:39.380 So we do that in the show. 440 00:18:39.380 --> 00:18:40.940 Yeah, and I'll pull the spear out and spear him. 441 00:18:41.060 --> 00:18:41.940 Well the kids think it's funny. 442 00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:44.460 No, it's good. It's all good. 443 00:18:44.540 --> 00:18:45.560 But it gets them. 444 00:18:45.560 --> 00:18:45.800 And it's fun. 445 00:18:45.880 --> 00:18:46.460 It does. 446 00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:49.560 They love it because they all get up straight away. 447 00:18:49.720 --> 00:18:49.920 I say, 448 00:18:50.420 --> 00:18:50.820 Karikarani. 449 00:18:51.720 --> 00:18:52.120 Karikarani. 450 00:18:52.520 --> 00:18:52.920 Karikarani. 451 00:18:53.040 --> 00:18:54.580 And then by the time, 452 00:18:54.660 --> 00:18:56.540 we leave, the teachers are saying 453 00:18:56.540 --> 00:18:57.700 to them, karikarani. 454 00:18:58.820 --> 00:18:59.420 And then, 455 00:19:00.360 --> 00:19:02.520 I say to them, I say, so I'm now going to 456 00:19:02.520 --> 00:19:03.140 sing in language. 457 00:19:05.040 --> 00:19:05.360 Oh. 458 00:19:06.040 --> 00:19:06.760 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 459 00:19:07.320 --> 00:19:07.640 Yeah. 460 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:10.620 This is cool. 461 00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:14.560 Now, when 462 00:19:14.560 --> 00:19:16.680 we first started, when we came together, 463 00:19:17.220 --> 00:19:18.080 with the show, 464 00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:20.360 you know, everyone, you've got to write things down, 465 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:22.100 you know? You've got to write, 466 00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:23.580 And I said, no, don't worry, we'll write that 467 00:19:23.580 --> 00:19:25.980 first draft, second draft. We've probably 468 00:19:25.980 --> 00:19:28.220 written what we haven't had to do, 469 00:19:28.300 --> 00:19:30.100 really, 20 drafts. 470 00:19:30.120 --> 00:19:32.400 The nature of a show is that you write it, you write it, 471 00:19:32.420 --> 00:19:33.620 you rewrite it, you rehearse it, 472 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:36.020 and then you perform it. And as you perform it, you always 473 00:19:36.020 --> 00:19:37.820 take feedback and see what works, and 474 00:19:37.820 --> 00:19:40.080 then you have ideas. The show's always interactive, so 475 00:19:40.080 --> 00:19:41.900 you're always, oh, right, I'll, we, 476 00:19:41.900 --> 00:19:43.940 and one of the great things about being performers that trust 477 00:19:43.940 --> 00:19:45.220 each other, you'll throw things out 478 00:19:46.240 --> 00:19:48.080 as you're doing it, and see what 479 00:19:48.080 --> 00:19:50.100 works, and sometimes I'm trying not 480 00:19:50.100 --> 00:19:51.860 to laugh, and he's trying not to laugh, and you're, 481 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:53.320 but it's that thing, it's that 482 00:19:53.320 --> 00:19:55.120 creative thing, it's like, yep, be brave. 483 00:19:55.280 --> 00:19:56.440 Always be brave as performers. 484 00:19:58.000 --> 00:19:59.400 And so, originally, when we 485 00:19:59.400 --> 00:20:01.540 started the show, my character was English. 486 00:20:02.940 --> 00:20:03.660 As our 487 00:20:03.660 --> 00:20:05.520 journey continued, I thought, well, hang on a minute, 488 00:20:05.660 --> 00:20:07.740 I've got Scottish, Irish, and Welsh, 489 00:20:07.900 --> 00:20:09.360 and the Welsh never get a good 490 00:20:09.360 --> 00:20:10.720 shot. So, 491 00:20:12.520 --> 00:20:13.600 with some work I'd done 492 00:20:13.600 --> 00:20:15.640 at the Maritime Museum, I'd learnt to be able 493 00:20:15.640 --> 00:20:17.320 to do a Welsh accent reasonably well. 494 00:20:20.380 --> 00:20:21.400 That's not what I've heard. 495 00:20:22.540 --> 00:20:23.040 It's fine. 496 00:20:23.320 --> 00:20:25.680 You just cut out all of the 497 00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:27.140 vowels in all of the words. 498 00:20:30.140 --> 00:20:31.320 It's funny, because it's true. 499 00:20:31.540 --> 00:20:33.740 But it's like this song, hey, it wasn't, 500 00:20:33.740 --> 00:20:35.740 you know, at the beginning, and then it was 501 00:20:35.740 --> 00:20:36.320 like, yeah, yeah. 502 00:20:36.840 --> 00:20:39.260 So, the song's about a little saucepan. 503 00:20:39.440 --> 00:20:41.200 Anybody, any Welsh folk in the audience? 504 00:20:43.580 --> 00:20:43.980 Pressure. 505 00:20:45.600 --> 00:20:47.360 So, the song's called Sospen Bach. 506 00:20:47.520 --> 00:20:49.120 In the chorus, you sing 507 00:20:49.600 --> 00:20:51.500 Sospen Bach, with me. 508 00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:52.560 Alright? 509 00:20:53.320 --> 00:20:54.540 So, let's try that. 510 00:20:54.660 --> 00:20:56.140 One, two, three, four. 511 00:20:56.900 --> 00:20:57.900 Sospen Bach. 512 00:20:58.580 --> 00:20:59.260 Nice. 513 00:21:00.360 --> 00:21:00.460 That's it. 514 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:02.320 My big Mary Ann 515 00:21:02.320 --> 00:21:03.040 When he bray 516 00:21:03.040 --> 00:21:04.820 Pocko David 517 00:21:04.820 --> 00:21:06.140 A-gwa-ti-men-ya 518 00:21:06.140 --> 00:21:08.020 My bap-a-nuh 519 00:21:08.020 --> 00:21:09.320 Creed-un-cray 520 00:21:09.320 --> 00:21:10.780 Oh, oh, God 521 00:21:10.780 --> 00:21:11.800 When he's clap-o 522 00:21:11.800 --> 00:21:12.480 Johnny Bach 523 00:21:13.780 --> 00:21:15.080 Sospen Bach 524 00:21:15.080 --> 00:21:16.280 When Mary-a-a-ta 525 00:21:16.980 --> 00:21:18.300 Sospen Bach 526 00:21:18.300 --> 00:21:19.760 When Mary-a-a-la 527 00:21:19.760 --> 00:21:20.520 Ah, God 528 00:21:20.520 --> 00:21:22.160 When he's clap-o 529 00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:23.300 Johnny Bach 530 00:21:26.660 --> 00:21:27.660 Sospen Bach 531 00:21:27.660 --> 00:21:28.860 When Mary-a-a-ta 532 00:21:29.860 --> 00:21:30.820 Sospen Bach 533 00:21:30.820 --> 00:21:32.840 When Mary-a-a-la-ra-ga 534 00:21:32.840 --> 00:21:34.720 When he's clap-o 535 00:21:34.720 --> 00:21:36.420 Johnny Bach 536 00:21:38.780 --> 00:21:41.660 Die-bach-un-soldier 537 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:44.880 Die-bach-un-soldier 538 00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:48.000 Die-bach-un-soldier 539 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:48.800 Ah, God 540 00:21:48.800 --> 00:21:50.380 Take me, say, bye 541 00:21:50.380 --> 00:21:52.380 Now, I don't normally do the second verse. 542 00:21:52.560 --> 00:21:53.300 So, I'm going to have to change it. 543 00:21:53.320 --> 00:21:53.940 You can do it while I do that. 544 00:21:54.100 --> 00:21:55.940 My bap-a-nuh 545 00:21:55.940 --> 00:21:56.740 Creed-un-cray 546 00:21:56.740 --> 00:21:58.580 Oh, oh, God 547 00:21:58.580 --> 00:21:58.620 When he's clap-o 548 00:21:58.620 --> 00:21:59.740 David-a-gwa-su-na-be 549 00:21:59.740 --> 00:22:01.680 My bap-a-nuh 550 00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:02.800 Creed-un-cray 551 00:22:02.800 --> 00:22:04.360 Oh, oh, God 552 00:22:04.360 --> 00:22:05.420 When he's clap-o 553 00:22:05.420 --> 00:22:05.980 Johnny Bach 554 00:22:07.540 --> 00:22:08.580 Sospen Bach 555 00:22:08.580 --> 00:22:09.740 When Mary-a-a-ta 556 00:22:10.680 --> 00:22:11.740 Sospen Bach 557 00:22:11.740 --> 00:22:13.680 When Mary-a-a-la-ra-ga 558 00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:14.440 Oh, oh, God 559 00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:15.580 When he's clap-o 560 00:22:15.580 --> 00:22:17.020 Johnny Bach 561 00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:19.300 A little louder 562 00:22:19.980 --> 00:22:21.100 Sospen Bach 563 00:22:21.100 --> 00:22:22.300 When Mary-a-a-ta 564 00:22:22.300 --> 00:22:24.080 Sospen Bach 565 00:22:24.080 --> 00:22:26.180 When Mary-a-la-ra-ga 566 00:22:26.180 --> 00:22:28.180 When he's clap-o 567 00:22:28.180 --> 00:22:29.960 Johnny Bach 568 00:22:31.580 --> 00:22:35.440 Die-bach-un-soldier 569 00:22:36.120 --> 00:22:38.760 Die-bach-un-soldier 570 00:22:39.460 --> 00:22:42.000 Die-bach-un-soldier 571 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:44.920 Aigua-te-gris-a-ma 572 00:22:46.620 --> 00:22:47.520 That's Welsh. 573 00:22:53.260 --> 00:22:54.580 And for me, part of... 574 00:22:54.580 --> 00:22:55.560 And there was that stuff, I guess, 575 00:22:55.600 --> 00:22:56.680 that I was talking about at the beginning, 576 00:22:57.320 --> 00:23:01.160 that by walking and learning 577 00:23:01.160 --> 00:23:03.580 how Carl was looking at the world 578 00:23:03.580 --> 00:23:05.520 and acknowledging that I have a way of seeing it, 579 00:23:05.560 --> 00:23:07.300 but also learning to listen 580 00:23:07.880 --> 00:23:09.940 and see his ways of understanding it, 581 00:23:09.980 --> 00:23:10.620 made me stop and go, 582 00:23:10.680 --> 00:23:11.160 well, hang on a minute, 583 00:23:11.260 --> 00:23:12.620 yeah, what about my ancestors? 584 00:23:12.740 --> 00:23:13.260 What about... 585 00:23:13.260 --> 00:23:14.780 And how far back can I go? 586 00:23:14.980 --> 00:23:16.300 So I've just sent off 587 00:23:16.300 --> 00:23:18.820 one of those Ancestry.com things 588 00:23:18.820 --> 00:23:20.780 to find out how much of a Viking I am 589 00:23:20.780 --> 00:23:21.880 or how much of a whatever I am. 590 00:23:22.300 --> 00:23:22.700 Because it's... 591 00:23:22.700 --> 00:23:24.360 Yeah, because I don't know what he is. 592 00:23:24.360 --> 00:23:25.200 I'm going to ask you. 593 00:23:25.620 --> 00:23:26.400 But it is. 594 00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:27.960 It's that question of, like, well, who... 595 00:23:28.660 --> 00:23:30.800 How did I get to where I am? 596 00:23:30.900 --> 00:23:32.460 Where I am is my home. 597 00:23:32.540 --> 00:23:34.860 Here in Australia is my home. 598 00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:36.620 And there are so many layers 599 00:23:37.280 --> 00:23:39.020 that we can explore. 600 00:23:39.380 --> 00:23:41.540 We were talking before about... 601 00:23:42.180 --> 00:23:44.460 I mean, this particular guitar I've had for 25 years. 602 00:23:44.780 --> 00:23:46.300 This particular guitar, 603 00:23:46.440 --> 00:23:48.540 I have written a whole heap of songs on it. 604 00:23:48.700 --> 00:23:51.560 Some of them are ballads of broken relationships. 605 00:23:51.560 --> 00:23:52.280 Some of them... 606 00:23:52.280 --> 00:23:53.380 Some of them are kid songs. 607 00:23:55.500 --> 00:23:57.080 And each of those songs 608 00:23:57.080 --> 00:24:00.060 become a part of the story that this guitar... 609 00:24:00.860 --> 00:24:02.640 One of the great things about doing the work 610 00:24:02.640 --> 00:24:03.540 that I do with museums, 611 00:24:03.840 --> 00:24:05.780 that all of the things that you see in museums 612 00:24:05.780 --> 00:24:08.620 have such layers of story upon them. 613 00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:10.880 And so this is... 614 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:11.600 Yep, you got five minutes? 615 00:24:11.720 --> 00:24:11.900 Yeah, yeah. 616 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:14.200 So it's really important 617 00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:17.020 when you walk around somewhere like Adelaide, 618 00:24:17.640 --> 00:24:19.660 you can apply the same, I guess, 619 00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:20.760 the same kind of thinking 620 00:24:20.760 --> 00:24:21.580 that there are... 621 00:24:21.580 --> 00:24:23.020 multiple layers of story 622 00:24:23.020 --> 00:24:24.840 which add to your story 623 00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:27.000 for this to be your home. 624 00:24:27.280 --> 00:24:30.220 And I think that's one of the lessons for me 625 00:24:30.220 --> 00:24:31.900 of the last few years 626 00:24:31.900 --> 00:24:33.740 of Carl and I working together. 627 00:24:35.060 --> 00:24:35.900 And for me, 628 00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:37.600 I'm still waiting for a peaceful settlement. 629 00:24:38.900 --> 00:24:39.380 Me? 630 00:24:39.580 --> 00:24:41.320 I mean, the king signed the document. 631 00:24:41.860 --> 00:24:43.040 Put the seal on there. 632 00:24:43.280 --> 00:24:43.480 Yeah. 633 00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:45.200 Used counter wax. 634 00:24:45.580 --> 00:24:45.960 Awkward. 635 00:24:46.360 --> 00:24:47.500 Used red, you know? 636 00:24:47.660 --> 00:24:48.320 Yeah, yeah. 637 00:24:48.740 --> 00:24:49.420 So, you know, 638 00:24:49.420 --> 00:24:50.400 they're the sort of things too, 639 00:24:50.500 --> 00:24:50.900 like... 640 00:24:51.580 --> 00:24:52.340 because you see how much 641 00:24:53.180 --> 00:24:53.820 the kids 642 00:24:55.480 --> 00:24:56.120 are involved. 643 00:24:56.440 --> 00:24:57.740 And we get the teachers up too 644 00:24:57.740 --> 00:24:58.800 and we get them involved as well. 645 00:24:58.920 --> 00:25:00.260 But you see how involved the kids are 646 00:25:00.260 --> 00:25:02.240 and how, you know, 647 00:25:02.260 --> 00:25:03.060 they want to get up. 648 00:25:03.120 --> 00:25:03.920 They want to participate. 649 00:25:03.980 --> 00:25:04.860 They want to be part of this. 650 00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:07.460 And there's an opportunity there then 651 00:25:07.460 --> 00:25:09.560 because, you know, 652 00:25:09.580 --> 00:25:10.640 to get them out of that classroom 653 00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:13.060 because that's not the only place 654 00:25:13.060 --> 00:25:14.000 where you can become educated. 655 00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:15.660 And you find that out 656 00:25:15.660 --> 00:25:17.800 when you leave these halls of education 657 00:25:17.800 --> 00:25:19.380 or the other ones 658 00:25:19.380 --> 00:25:20.940 around the place down here, you know? 659 00:25:20.940 --> 00:25:21.760 The institutions 660 00:25:21.760 --> 00:25:22.880 along our cultural boulevard. 661 00:25:23.420 --> 00:25:24.880 And it's not until you understand 662 00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:25.880 your own place 663 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:27.160 as a human being 664 00:25:27.720 --> 00:25:29.200 in the spirit of humanity 665 00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:30.920 in this world that we all walk 666 00:25:31.480 --> 00:25:32.520 on our earth walk 667 00:25:32.520 --> 00:25:34.680 that there are many other facets 668 00:25:34.680 --> 00:25:36.360 to, you know, understanding 669 00:25:36.360 --> 00:25:38.160 and being what they call 670 00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:39.100 edumacated, eh? 671 00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:42.740 Because it's how we relate 672 00:25:42.740 --> 00:25:43.920 to each other. 673 00:25:43.980 --> 00:25:45.000 It's about the relationships. 674 00:25:45.780 --> 00:25:47.600 And it comes back to that word respect. 675 00:25:48.440 --> 00:25:49.100 You know? 676 00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:50.220 So, for me, 677 00:25:51.340 --> 00:25:56.740 I've always tried to put that as number one. 678 00:25:57.980 --> 00:25:59.380 And that's where I come from today, 679 00:25:59.580 --> 00:26:01.340 doing culture practice and culture today. 680 00:26:02.160 --> 00:26:04.900 Can't walk more, can't do it down this place here, 681 00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:06.120 down Tultu Wadley there 682 00:26:07.160 --> 00:26:08.140 because that's where golf, 683 00:26:08.320 --> 00:26:09.280 I follow play golf. 684 00:26:09.500 --> 00:26:12.080 I can't put big fire there, you know? 685 00:26:13.140 --> 00:26:15.220 Can't go and do it anywhere else, you know? 686 00:26:15.460 --> 00:26:19.480 But that's what I'm confined to, you know? 687 00:26:20.280 --> 00:26:20.920 And, you know, I've always tried to put that as number one. 688 00:26:23.060 --> 00:26:25.680 Sadly, that's what we're all confining ourselves to. 689 00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:29.880 You know, that quarter-acre block, you know? 690 00:26:30.040 --> 00:26:31.120 Wasn't that the Aussie dream? 691 00:26:32.720 --> 00:26:33.420 I don't know. 692 00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:34.140 I'm still dreaming. 693 00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:37.340 And just finishing on that, I just want to show you 694 00:26:37.340 --> 00:26:41.420 because people don't believe us when we talk about dreaming. 695 00:26:41.460 --> 00:26:44.440 I say dream time or this time or that, you know? 696 00:26:44.540 --> 00:26:45.240 What is that? 697 00:26:46.560 --> 00:26:50.800 But people are becoming more aware of who we are now. 698 00:26:50.920 --> 00:26:52.020 And what we're talking about. 699 00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:58.160 So I just wanted to show you this here. 700 00:26:58.760 --> 00:27:00.920 And I think you can see it from there. 701 00:27:01.240 --> 00:27:02.740 But this is a map. 702 00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:04.840 There's Kangaroo Island. 703 00:27:05.200 --> 00:27:06.160 Here we are here. 704 00:27:06.580 --> 00:27:07.960 And you know this place is . 705 00:27:13.240 --> 00:27:15.800 So, you know, I don't talk shit. 706 00:27:17.540 --> 00:27:18.900 Oh, well, actually, no. 707 00:27:19.040 --> 00:27:19.720 Yeah, no. 708 00:27:19.880 --> 00:27:20.900 But that word. 709 00:27:20.920 --> 00:27:21.640 Excuse that word. 710 00:27:21.680 --> 00:27:22.380 It was taught to me. 711 00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:22.880 Yes. 712 00:27:24.360 --> 00:27:26.140 I'll call that proper English. 713 00:27:27.080 --> 00:27:30.200 And I think because we've got some more folks to come on shortly. 714 00:27:31.360 --> 00:27:37.080 But to reiterate what I said before, it's about, for me, 715 00:27:37.180 --> 00:27:40.180 this is not about losing anything. 716 00:27:41.040 --> 00:27:42.180 Because we're not, you know, 717 00:27:42.660 --> 00:27:44.680 me little white fellow's not going to lose my house. 718 00:27:45.120 --> 00:27:48.780 But I'm going to gain a greater understanding of that house 719 00:27:48.780 --> 00:27:50.300 that makes it much more of a home. 720 00:27:50.920 --> 00:27:56.060 Because I understand the 60,000 years, 70,000 year of human stories 721 00:27:56.060 --> 00:27:56.980 that are attached to it. 722 00:27:57.600 --> 00:28:01.280 I also now understand the prehistoric story that is Australia, 723 00:28:01.400 --> 00:28:04.280 which adds to all of the stuff that we are so. 724 00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:08.380 Well, we've just got to walk softly on country, you know. 725 00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:10.580 And it's about what I'll say straight out. 726 00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:13.420 It's about how colonization shares space. 727 00:28:14.860 --> 00:28:15.880 Because we don't have any. 728 00:28:15.980 --> 00:28:16.720 We don't have anything. 729 00:28:17.440 --> 00:28:20.760 I don't have one foot, you know, of country. 730 00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:21.180 We don't have anything anywhere. 731 00:28:21.400 --> 00:28:23.900 So that's why I do a greeting to the spirit of place. 732 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:24.660 I've never done a welcome. 733 00:28:25.100 --> 00:28:25.840 Because I don't do them. 734 00:28:27.060 --> 00:28:29.340 I've always done, I'll greet you in the spirit of humanity. 735 00:28:30.620 --> 00:28:32.200 And I can welcome you to this event. 736 00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:34.420 But you've got someone else to do that. 737 00:28:36.020 --> 00:28:39.680 But if I add country, well then, you can sit down there then and do ceremony. 738 00:28:39.820 --> 00:28:40.900 And we can go through the process. 739 00:28:41.700 --> 00:28:43.780 Because it takes two days, not two minutes. 740 00:28:45.040 --> 00:28:45.900 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 741 00:28:47.640 --> 00:28:48.080 All right. 742 00:28:48.260 --> 00:28:48.700 All right. 743 00:28:49.040 --> 00:28:49.360 Time. 744 00:28:49.460 --> 00:28:49.640 We should. 745 00:28:49.840 --> 00:28:50.380 I've got to go. 746 00:28:50.920 --> 00:28:52.300 Thanks anyway, everybody. 747 00:28:52.580 --> 00:28:52.800 Thank you. 748 00:28:52.800 --> 00:28:53.420 Thank you. 749 00:29:29.340 --> 00:29:30.320 Welcome. 750 00:30:10.800 --> 00:30:12.200 © transcript Emily Beynon 751 00:30:40.820 --> 00:30:42.220 © transcript Emily Beynon 752 00:31:11.580 --> 00:31:11.840 © transcript Emily Beynon 753 00:31:27.800 --> 00:31:42.220 © transcript Emily Beynon 754 00:31:49.620 --> 00:31:53.020 © transcript Emily Beynon 755 00:32:20.920 --> 00:32:23.980 © transcript Emily Beynon 756 00:32:53.200 --> 00:32:56.000 © transcript Emily Beynon 757 00:33:26.680 --> 00:33:42.080 © transcript Emily Beynon 758 00:33:42.240 --> 00:33:44.260 © transcript Emily Beynon 759 00:34:13.180 --> 00:34:15.980 © transcript Emily Beynon 760 00:34:42.240 --> 00:34:43.720 © transcript Emily Beynon 761 00:34:55.300 --> 00:34:57.160 © transcript Emily Beynon 762 00:35:22.680 --> 00:35:24.520 © transcript Emily Beynon 763 00:35:24.520 --> 00:35:26.740 © transcript Emily Beynon 764 00:35:28.560 --> 00:35:30.240 © transcript Emily Beynon 765 00:35:30.240 --> 00:35:31.960 © transcript Emily Beynon 766 00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:34.760 © transcript Emily Beynon 767 00:35:34.760 --> 00:35:35.700 © transcript Emily Beynon 768 00:35:35.700 --> 00:35:36.180 © transcript Emily Beynon 769 00:35:36.180 --> 00:35:36.640 © transcript Emily Beynon 770 00:35:36.640 --> 00:35:37.560 © transcript Emily Beynon 771 00:35:37.560 --> 00:35:39.100 © transcript Emily Beynon 772 00:35:39.100 --> 00:35:40.940 © transcript Emily Beynon 773 00:35:40.940 --> 00:35:42.220 © transcript Emily Beynon 774 00:35:42.220 --> 00:35:48.320 to echo the music of my family but the square within me still remains the 775 00:35:48.320 --> 00:35:51.220 square hole stops me in my entirety 776 00:36:03.680 --> 00:36:07.980 it's such a privilege to be up here with you Ellie I love hearing your stories we 777 00:36:07.980 --> 00:36:12.500 found a lot of parallels when we were talking about our work not necessarily 778 00:36:12.500 --> 00:36:18.540 similarities but parallels yeah very interesting um this next poem that I'm 779 00:36:18.540 --> 00:36:22.280 gonna do I'm gonna stand up for and I also want to introduce something if 780 00:36:22.280 --> 00:36:26.040 that's alright something that we do in kind of the slam or spoken word poetry 781 00:36:26.040 --> 00:36:30.440 scene and that's because it's very interactive when you feel something or 782 00:36:30.440 --> 00:36:34.340 if you like something you can click just so that can everybody do that for a 783 00:36:34.340 --> 00:36:37.960 second yeah great so if you're liking 784 00:36:37.960 --> 00:36:42.340 something that said go ahead and do that I didn't realize I was that funny 785 00:36:42.340 --> 00:36:47.780 okay you can go ahead and do that and that's just so that I can vibe off of 786 00:36:47.780 --> 00:36:52.780 you when I think of home it's always been a very conflicting thing for me 787 00:36:53.880 --> 00:36:57.720 because being coming to Australia when I was three years old I was very young so 788 00:36:58.320 --> 00:37:04.720 not really having my feet planted in this land but not really belonging to 789 00:37:04.720 --> 00:37:07.840 anywhere else either so it's been very confusing and this one's a little bit 790 00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:13.620 about my experiences of trying to come to terms with where I fit in and in this 791 00:37:13.620 --> 00:37:22.580 country and yeah don't you speak English said the professor to the student this 792 00:37:22.580 --> 00:37:26.660 was just after the student had been conversing in plain English with no hint 793 00:37:26.660 --> 00:37:31.100 of a foreign accent and when his friend with a pale complexion intervened of 794 00:37:31.100 --> 00:37:35.920 course the professor backed off the student father complaint and went about 795 00:37:35.920 --> 00:37:36.380 his day 796 00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:43.360 but for me I didn't let it go that easily see he a fair dinkum um as Aussie 797 00:37:43.360 --> 00:37:48.000 as they calm um as liberal of a Muslim as you'll ever find this post-grad 798 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:52.280 Australian born aspiring to Australian politics because he loves this nation 799 00:37:52.280 --> 00:37:58.180 had no chance despite his faultless articulation his first-class dark grey 800 00:37:58.180 --> 00:38:02.120 suit his skin was a giveaway and he had been cursed with the blessing of a 801 00:38:02.120 --> 00:38:07.820 foreign name this fair dinkum um as Aussie as they calm um as liberal of a 802 00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:12.940 Muslim as you'll ever find, had just been telling me how glad he was that his parents weren't 803 00:38:12.940 --> 00:38:18.820 traditionalists. I'd watched him run like a foot soldier for the very university he's now being 804 00:38:18.820 --> 00:38:26.560 abused in. He is everything that they could ever ask him to be. So what hope is there for me? 805 00:38:27.100 --> 00:38:31.820 What hope is there for the kids with foreign names, for the kids with colored skin, the women 806 00:38:31.820 --> 00:38:36.880 who wear scarves, for the Mohammeds, for the ones who just like beards, the convex nose, the wider 807 00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:41.380 nose, for the smaller eyed, the ones with accents, for the ones who can't afford to throw back 808 00:38:41.380 --> 00:38:46.680 stereotypes of being broke and black? What about the kids who are advised to take easy courses 809 00:38:46.680 --> 00:38:52.040 because they're most likely going to fail the other ones? Or what about the ones ignored in 810 00:38:52.040 --> 00:38:57.140 class because they probably won't have anything useful to say? What about the ones ignored because 811 00:38:57.140 --> 00:39:03.200 they've been brought up in a different way? What about the ones who can't get to uni or who can't 812 00:39:03.200 --> 00:39:06.160 say what they need to in the face of adversity? What about the ones 813 00:39:06.160 --> 00:39:06.860 who can't get to university? What about the ones who can't get to university? What about the ones 814 00:39:06.860 --> 00:39:12.540 who can't be fair dinkum, as Aussie as they come, as liberal of a Muslim as you'll ever find? 815 00:39:13.040 --> 00:39:19.680 But hey, why should we try when even that's not enough? Thank you. 816 00:39:29.040 --> 00:39:35.920 I can't stop drinking, I tell you true, since I watched my daughter perish. She burnt to death 817 00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:36.840 inside the car. I can't stop drinking, I tell you true, since I watched my daughter perish. 818 00:39:36.860 --> 00:39:44.320 I lost what I most cherished. I seen the angels hold her as I screamed with useless hope. 819 00:39:44.960 --> 00:39:48.640 Can't stop drinking, I tell you true, it's the only way I cope. 820 00:39:49.820 --> 00:39:55.980 I can't stop drinking, I tell you true, since I found my sister dead. 821 00:39:56.700 --> 00:40:04.240 She hung herself to stop the rapes. I found her in the shed. That rapist bastard still lives here, 822 00:40:04.880 --> 00:40:06.200 unpunished in this town. 823 00:40:07.260 --> 00:40:11.120 Can't stop drinking, I tell you true, since I cut her down. 824 00:40:12.120 --> 00:40:16.340 I can't stop drinking, I tell you true, since my mother passed away. 825 00:40:16.700 --> 00:40:21.080 They found her battered down the creek. I miss her more each day. 826 00:40:21.820 --> 00:40:26.240 My family blame me for her death. Their words have made me wild. 827 00:40:26.580 --> 00:40:30.840 I can't stop drinking, I tell you true, because I was just a child. 828 00:40:31.680 --> 00:40:36.080 So if you see someone like me, who's drunk and loud and cursing, 829 00:40:36.860 --> 00:40:41.080 don't judge too hard, because you don't know what sorrows we are nursing. 830 00:40:42.240 --> 00:40:43.360 Thank you. 831 00:40:58.520 --> 00:41:01.920 They tell me my profile is like my father's. 832 00:41:02.760 --> 00:41:06.760 The chiseled nose and the jaw holding stories from the city in the clouds. 833 00:41:06.860 --> 00:41:18.060 To the home of ancient remnants and colonial covenants, we were generations raised on crimson dust between highlands and Red Sea, but it seems that all we have are memories. 834 00:41:18.720 --> 00:41:24.220 A tear for every time an auntie asks me, do you remember me? And I say, no. 835 00:41:25.060 --> 00:41:30.280 For every time I remind my baby sister where she's from and she says, so? 836 00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:39.080 For every phone call that starts with, oh wait, a fikki, and I say, no, I didn't lose touch, when really, I did. 837 00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:47.020 And that ends with, I te te tefi, and I say, no, I won't lose touch, when really, I will. 838 00:41:47.940 --> 00:41:51.180 Not because I want to, but I'm at a loss for words. 839 00:41:51.380 --> 00:41:59.760 They get stuck in my throat and I refuse to leave my tongue and instead come out in tears when I think about all those years that could have captured, 840 00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:07.640 that I could have captured in my own hands and relived before each conversation, then maybe we would actually have something to talk about. 841 00:42:08.420 --> 00:42:10.920 The moments of you, but so precious. 842 00:42:11.320 --> 00:42:19.000 Like sitting on the floor of an Addis home with my grandmother weaving lacha, like I weave between cultures and countries, presence and absence, 843 00:42:19.060 --> 00:42:22.800 she taught me to craft my own masrafat as I would my life. 844 00:42:23.160 --> 00:42:28.780 With patience, precision, and the wit of a woman, I learned from her to wear my crown. 845 00:42:29.360 --> 00:42:30.180 Of cloth. 846 00:42:30.860 --> 00:42:38.100 Passed down from mother to mother in varying colors, cloth that once was just cloth now holds truth. 847 00:42:38.560 --> 00:42:46.120 Strings cut, love costs cloth that represents roads and rivers that run west of red waters, lives lost crossing borders, 848 00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:53.060 because those amongst us forders may forters, made killers of our sons and daughters, as they taught us. 849 00:42:53.200 --> 00:42:56.440 That there's no justice here, just us and power hoarders. 850 00:42:57.160 --> 00:42:57.900 Thank you. 851 00:43:11.240 --> 00:43:18.600 My mother screams as I touch her hair, attempting to brush away the coarseness with my hands, 852 00:43:19.640 --> 00:43:26.400 to entwine tweaks filled with leaves into her locks, a tiara of green to soften her face. 853 00:43:27.620 --> 00:43:29.440 And her tears dry now. 854 00:43:29.440 --> 00:43:35.740 my mother is frailing. She talks only to those who have gone before, no longer 855 00:43:35.740 --> 00:43:42.720 seeing my love, no longer needing. And the wailing bursts from her mouths as she 856 00:43:42.720 --> 00:43:50.780 sinks to the ground, her mother, the earth, my mother, the dying, throws sand in her 857 00:43:50.780 --> 00:43:51.200 face. 858 00:43:58.800 --> 00:44:08.820 Tasting the grit in her mouth and wailing louder, throws herself forward, pushing her 859 00:44:08.820 --> 00:44:19.740 breath into the softness of the earth, her mother and my mother, the dying, crawls down 860 00:44:19.740 --> 00:44:21.100 into that final embrace. 861 00:44:21.100 --> 00:44:28.880 Her conversation incoherent now, as if like a child, she is practising words for the 862 00:44:28.880 --> 00:44:29.960 lifetime to come. 863 00:44:32.180 --> 00:44:39.460 And the syllables loud and guttural spill over the sand, her mother, the earth, and 864 00:44:39.460 --> 00:44:46.920 I walk away leaving her there, in that cradle, safely nestled in the roots of that tree. 865 00:44:48.080 --> 00:44:49.680 Safe in her country. 866 00:44:50.780 --> 00:44:51.080 Our story. 867 00:44:51.100 --> 00:44:51.460 Her solace. 868 00:44:51.580 --> 00:44:52.520 Her grave. 869 00:45:10.560 --> 00:45:15.160 This one I've never actually performed before. 870 00:45:15.780 --> 00:45:17.820 I just pulled it out for this today. 871 00:45:21.320 --> 00:45:23.660 How many of you have heard of the country Eritrea? 872 00:45:25.340 --> 00:45:26.380 Oh, this is good. 873 00:45:26.700 --> 00:45:29.160 I'm so used to like the first reaction being like, what? 874 00:45:29.300 --> 00:45:29.800 Where's that? 875 00:45:30.560 --> 00:45:31.780 So, this is comforting. 876 00:45:32.620 --> 00:45:34.380 That's where my family's originally from. 877 00:45:35.020 --> 00:45:40.000 And so this poem is kind of, I wrote it to Eritrea. 878 00:45:40.020 --> 00:45:41.800 It's called Nats and Nets, which means freedom. 879 00:45:42.100 --> 00:45:44.940 So it's a country that got independence 25 years ago. 880 00:45:45.660 --> 00:45:46.460 And that's... 881 00:45:46.940 --> 00:45:49.920 But since then it's been under a dictatorship. 882 00:45:50.520 --> 00:45:52.680 And that's why my family and I can't go back. 883 00:45:52.820 --> 00:45:57.440 So, yeah, our family's kind of scattered all over the world because as refugees you go 884 00:45:57.440 --> 00:45:58.200 wherever it takes you. 885 00:45:59.360 --> 00:46:01.240 And this is kind of about that. 886 00:46:03.660 --> 00:46:04.960 I have a big family. 887 00:46:05.780 --> 00:46:10.900 But wars and war-torn causes shattered our dreams and scatter our pebbles, ripping our 888 00:46:10.900 --> 00:46:11.900 fabric from the seams. 889 00:46:12.040 --> 00:46:13.500 We are all refugees. 890 00:46:14.220 --> 00:46:15.480 We have our stories. 891 00:46:15.580 --> 00:46:16.440 But where to begin? 892 00:46:16.460 --> 00:46:21.940 Should I tell you about the ones in France or Italy or London, Texas or Canada, Florida, 893 00:46:22.160 --> 00:46:27.320 Addis or Germany, Jeddah, Asmara, Sweden, Sudan or Australia? 894 00:46:28.060 --> 00:46:31.100 The ones I've met or the strangers with whom I share ancestry? 895 00:46:31.860 --> 00:46:36.540 The ones in palaces built by slavery with bricks of corruption or the ones flooding 896 00:46:36.540 --> 00:46:38.040 camps throughout the motherland? 897 00:46:38.740 --> 00:46:41.440 Or the uncle whose body was found dismembered on a farm? 898 00:46:41.800 --> 00:46:46.440 Or maybe the one who was imprisoned without trial and for 20 years later we still have 899 00:46:46.440 --> 00:46:47.640 no clue if he's dead or alive? 900 00:46:48.680 --> 00:46:51.640 Is that the one who tried to escape to Israel but was held for ransom? 901 00:46:51.820 --> 00:46:55.620 And when we couldn't pay it, they sold parts of him? 902 00:46:56.120 --> 00:47:00.940 The ones shot down on the borders or the ones who sank in the depths of their only hope 903 00:47:00.940 --> 00:47:02.600 to some kind of life worth living? 904 00:47:03.960 --> 00:47:04.400 Lampedusa. 905 00:47:05.980 --> 00:47:10.960 Or one of the ones who are currently forced into national slavery, learning to use guns 906 00:47:10.960 --> 00:47:15.920 before learning to sum up the difference between freedom and being kept under the thumb, Eritrea? 907 00:47:17.980 --> 00:47:19.760 These are the stories of your children. 908 00:47:20.540 --> 00:47:25.500 My family scattered and broken, lost parents and children, brothers and sisters, cultural 909 00:47:25.500 --> 00:47:31.020 clashes, emotional lashes, fear of the past as memories flash us glimpses of the future. 910 00:47:31.160 --> 00:47:33.600 If this is what it looks like, then we don't want it. 911 00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:35.720 I'm sorry. 912 00:47:36.980 --> 00:47:39.700 We are now homeless, though you ask for our loyalty. 913 00:47:40.260 --> 00:47:45.380 For you were occupied by someone we thought was our freedom fighter, but like many, we 914 00:47:45.380 --> 00:47:46.280 only saw the truth. 915 00:47:46.280 --> 00:47:47.460 We were a true face when it was too late. 916 00:47:48.480 --> 00:47:48.920 Eritrea. 917 00:47:49.640 --> 00:47:55.120 On the day of your rebirth, many will celebrate, but I will mourn for your plight, for now 918 00:47:55.120 --> 00:47:59.000 the other enemy is gone and we only have ourselves to fight. 919 00:47:59.560 --> 00:48:03.860 The land of the red next to the Red Sea, the land I once lived in that no longer belongs 920 00:48:03.860 --> 00:48:04.380 to me. 921 00:48:05.260 --> 00:48:09.500 Your children long for you, but when they get too close, they feel the sting of bullets. 922 00:48:09.600 --> 00:48:10.860 How did you become so bitter? 923 00:48:11.760 --> 00:48:16.120 We are accepted more by hands with which we have no connection than we are in your own 924 00:48:16.120 --> 00:48:16.320 lands. 925 00:48:17.420 --> 00:48:22.740 By those you sent our fathers to war to protect us from, we are accepted. 926 00:48:23.880 --> 00:48:26.560 The faith of your people shrinks as your ego grows. 927 00:48:26.720 --> 00:48:27.960 Where do we go from here? 928 00:48:29.180 --> 00:48:29.700 Eritrea. 929 00:48:30.600 --> 00:48:31.300 Thank you. 930 00:48:42.200 --> 00:48:44.720 I think the spirit of my mum's here. 931 00:48:44.720 --> 00:48:45.460 I think mum's here. 932 00:48:47.180 --> 00:48:56.160 And part of the justification for tricking her into giving me up was that she could go 933 00:48:56.160 --> 00:48:56.680 to university. 934 00:48:57.420 --> 00:49:03.380 Maybe she's here to let me know that the trick was bullshit. 935 00:49:05.540 --> 00:49:08.060 We welcome the refugees to Australia. 936 00:49:08.140 --> 00:49:10.160 I welcome the refugees to Australia. 937 00:49:10.200 --> 00:49:11.840 I have no fear of the refugees. 938 00:49:11.840 --> 00:49:13.940 We have been made to be refugees. 939 00:49:14.180 --> 00:49:14.700 Eritrea. 940 00:49:14.720 --> 00:49:15.400 in our country. 941 00:49:16.160 --> 00:49:18.600 My mother was born at Maralinga. 942 00:49:20.600 --> 00:49:24.160 Resulted in the loss, in the separation of her from her mother, 943 00:49:24.300 --> 00:49:27.260 me from my mother, and my son from me. 944 00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:30.040 Maralinga had a huge effect on my family. 945 00:49:32.840 --> 00:49:34.180 A whisper arrives. 946 00:49:35.180 --> 00:49:35.980 2,000. 947 00:49:36.180 --> 00:49:37.560 2,000 or more. 948 00:49:37.900 --> 00:49:39.120 Did you hear it? 949 00:49:39.560 --> 00:49:40.380 That bomb. 950 00:49:40.580 --> 00:49:43.320 The torture of red sand turning green. 951 00:49:43.320 --> 00:49:46.160 The anguish of earth turned to glass. 952 00:49:46.780 --> 00:49:48.120 Did you hear it? 953 00:49:48.740 --> 00:49:49.880 2,000. 954 00:49:50.120 --> 00:49:51.780 2,000 or more. 955 00:49:51.980 --> 00:49:54.260 Yams cremated inside the earth. 956 00:49:54.720 --> 00:49:57.420 Poison trapped in glass like a museum. 957 00:49:58.200 --> 00:49:59.600 Did you hear it? 958 00:50:00.640 --> 00:50:01.920 2,000. 959 00:50:02.140 --> 00:50:05.440 2,000 or more tears we cried for our land. 960 00:50:05.620 --> 00:50:07.380 For the fear you gave us. 961 00:50:07.440 --> 00:50:09.120 For the sickness and the dying. 962 00:50:10.140 --> 00:50:11.840 2,000 years of memory here. 963 00:50:12.300 --> 00:50:13.300 2,000. 964 00:50:13.320 --> 00:50:15.500 2,000 or more. 965 00:50:16.620 --> 00:50:18.220 Peaceful place this place. 966 00:50:18.500 --> 00:50:19.540 Happy place. 967 00:50:19.740 --> 00:50:21.240 Till you come with your bombs. 968 00:50:21.520 --> 00:50:24.340 You stole our happiness with your poison ways. 969 00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:26.800 You stole our stories. 970 00:50:27.540 --> 00:50:28.860 2,000. 971 00:50:29.160 --> 00:50:30.700 2,000 or more. 972 00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:32.560 Our people gone missing. 973 00:50:33.220 --> 00:50:34.520 Did you hear it? 974 00:50:35.240 --> 00:50:36.620 Where's my grandfather? 975 00:50:37.100 --> 00:50:38.220 You seen him? 976 00:50:38.540 --> 00:50:39.840 Where's my daughter? 977 00:50:40.160 --> 00:50:41.380 You seen her? 978 00:50:41.860 --> 00:50:42.520 Mummy. 979 00:50:42.620 --> 00:50:43.300 You seen her? 980 00:50:43.300 --> 00:50:44.040 You seen my mum? 981 00:50:44.200 --> 00:50:44.700 Dad? 982 00:50:46.280 --> 00:50:47.480 2,000. 983 00:50:47.660 --> 00:50:50.860 2,000 or more times I ask for truth. 984 00:50:51.220 --> 00:50:52.780 Do you know where they are? 985 00:50:53.880 --> 00:50:55.080 2,000. 986 00:50:55.240 --> 00:50:56.740 2,000 or more. 987 00:50:56.980 --> 00:50:59.180 Trees dead with arms to the sky. 988 00:50:59.400 --> 00:51:00.740 All the birds missing. 989 00:51:01.100 --> 00:51:02.560 No birdsong here. 990 00:51:02.920 --> 00:51:04.160 Just stillness. 991 00:51:04.320 --> 00:51:05.540 Like a funeral. 992 00:51:06.420 --> 00:51:07.980 2,000 or more. 993 00:51:09.240 --> 00:51:10.620 A whisper arrives. 994 00:51:11.140 --> 00:51:12.420 Did you hear it? 995 00:51:12.680 --> 00:51:13.280 2,000. 996 00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:14.060 2,000. 997 00:51:14.060 --> 00:51:15.160 It sounds like glass. 998 00:51:15.480 --> 00:51:16.880 Our hearts breaking. 999 00:51:17.160 --> 00:51:19.040 But we are stronger than that. 1000 00:51:19.260 --> 00:51:20.960 We always rise us mob. 1001 00:51:21.300 --> 00:51:22.460 2,000. 1002 00:51:22.480 --> 00:51:23.740 2,000 or more. 1003 00:51:23.980 --> 00:51:25.300 You can't break us. 1004 00:51:25.480 --> 00:51:26.520 We're not glass. 1005 00:51:26.640 --> 00:51:27.760 We are people. 1006 00:51:28.980 --> 00:51:30.300 2,000. 1007 00:51:30.540 --> 00:51:32.120 2,000 or more. 1008 00:51:32.380 --> 00:51:34.160 Our spirits come together. 1009 00:51:34.420 --> 00:51:35.800 We make a heart. 1010 00:51:36.020 --> 00:51:37.480 Did you see it? 1011 00:51:37.500 --> 00:51:38.740 In the fragments? 1012 00:51:39.020 --> 00:51:40.520 It's there in the glass. 1013 00:51:41.260 --> 00:51:42.500 2,000. 1014 00:51:42.600 --> 00:51:43.260 2,000. 1015 00:51:43.280 --> 00:51:44.320 2,000 or more. 1016 00:51:44.740 --> 00:51:47.700 Our hearts grow as we mourn for our land. 1017 00:51:48.120 --> 00:51:49.280 It's part of us. 1018 00:51:49.440 --> 00:51:50.500 We love it. 1019 00:51:51.360 --> 00:51:52.220 Poisoned and all. 1020 00:52:09.560 --> 00:52:11.740 I'm going to attempt to do a little bit of a rap. 1021 00:52:12.600 --> 00:52:13.060 So... 1022 00:52:13.280 --> 00:52:14.640 Bear with me because I'm not a rapper. 1023 00:52:14.780 --> 00:52:17.060 It might just fade into spoken word. 1024 00:52:17.200 --> 00:52:18.480 But let me give it a shot. 1025 00:52:21.260 --> 00:52:21.620 Dust. 1026 00:52:22.920 --> 00:52:23.280 Dust. 1027 00:52:24.960 --> 00:52:25.680 Slowly rusting. 1028 00:52:26.300 --> 00:52:27.720 No trust but crust of lust. 1029 00:52:27.880 --> 00:52:29.960 Disgust I must let go. 1030 00:52:30.660 --> 00:52:31.680 Get in the zone. 1031 00:52:31.760 --> 00:52:32.260 Though not alone. 1032 00:52:32.360 --> 00:52:33.720 I still don't know what home is. 1033 00:52:33.820 --> 00:52:35.460 These phones and loans and groans of drones. 1034 00:52:35.540 --> 00:52:36.740 I try to tone my spirit. 1035 00:52:36.940 --> 00:52:38.260 The sounds of love are there. 1036 00:52:38.500 --> 00:52:39.180 But soft. 1037 00:52:39.420 --> 00:52:40.260 Can you hear it? 1038 00:52:40.480 --> 00:52:41.680 I know I want to be it. 1039 00:52:41.720 --> 00:52:43.080 But I can't hold what holds me. 1040 00:52:43.140 --> 00:52:43.260 Can you hear it? 1041 00:52:43.260 --> 00:52:44.860 See my father, he once told me. 1042 00:52:44.900 --> 00:52:47.060 When it's cold is when the heat of love will scold. 1043 00:52:47.180 --> 00:52:48.520 So I wait for the unfold. 1044 00:52:48.720 --> 00:52:51.940 I'd rather feel the burning than remain a solo soul. 1045 00:52:52.060 --> 00:52:53.620 But I'm nomadic in the stillness. 1046 00:52:53.740 --> 00:52:55.100 When they're moving, I'm still. 1047 00:52:55.180 --> 00:52:55.840 I'm not in sync. 1048 00:52:55.940 --> 00:52:56.740 I can't keep up. 1049 00:52:56.800 --> 00:52:58.100 And I'm not sure I ever will. 1050 00:52:58.420 --> 00:53:00.000 No, I'm not sure I want to be it. 1051 00:53:00.180 --> 00:53:01.200 But it's calling me. 1052 00:53:01.640 --> 00:53:02.560 It's calling me. 1053 00:53:02.600 --> 00:53:03.560 But I can't see it. 1054 00:53:04.060 --> 00:53:05.660 And I fear the lack of clear. 1055 00:53:06.020 --> 00:53:09.080 We sat watching planes take flight into the twilight. 1056 00:53:09.120 --> 00:53:10.680 Not quite day and not quite night. 1057 00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:12.640 We sat somewhere in the possibility. 1058 00:53:12.640 --> 00:53:15.860 Or fantasy of the contrary becoming complementary. 1059 00:53:16.160 --> 00:53:19.820 See these divine bloodlines that transcend mad made map lines. 1060 00:53:20.460 --> 00:53:21.400 Can't be confined. 1061 00:53:21.860 --> 00:53:23.100 They're a blessing and a curse. 1062 00:53:23.220 --> 00:53:26.200 But for every woman besides my mother that ever nursed me. 1063 00:53:26.260 --> 00:53:28.060 I hold a place beneath these layers. 1064 00:53:28.220 --> 00:53:31.380 And I know that home does not depend on a physical place. 1065 00:53:31.520 --> 00:53:33.640 But rather a meeting of time and motion. 1066 00:53:33.920 --> 00:53:35.500 See my 20s feel like home. 1067 00:53:35.660 --> 00:53:37.600 And it's where I am in this state of mind. 1068 00:53:37.840 --> 00:53:41.800 And wherever I'm standing in this body is the home I choose as mine. 1069 00:53:41.980 --> 00:53:42.140 . 1070 00:53:42.640 --> 00:53:43.560 Thank you. 1071 00:53:44.220 --> 00:53:45.060 . 1072 00:53:53.600 --> 00:53:54.440 Sunrise. 1073 00:53:55.940 --> 00:54:02.140 I see you grandmother more beautiful than a sunrise at Pippala Jara. 1074 00:54:02.580 --> 00:54:07.120 Wind swept red in McLeods watching over. 1075 00:54:08.860 --> 00:54:12.620 I hear you grandmother telling stories at you. 1076 00:54:12.620 --> 00:54:21.500 Kubapiti, old wisdom standing on sand dunes, watching over Kubapiti Kungajuta. 1077 00:54:24.140 --> 00:54:28.660 Frankie Yammer sings, talk this way, walk this way, 1078 00:54:29.940 --> 00:54:36.880 guide my journey back through the mixed up mayhem. 1079 00:54:38.520 --> 00:54:42.360 I feel you, my grandmother, sitting on the munda, 1080 00:54:43.320 --> 00:54:46.460 wailing away another half-caste day. 1081 00:54:56.240 --> 00:54:58.940 And this is the last poem that I'm going to do. 1082 00:54:59.800 --> 00:55:01.820 And this is very much about being in the present 1083 00:55:01.820 --> 00:55:05.900 and how I ended with the last piece about wherever I choose is home. 1084 00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:06.740 And this is, 1085 00:55:06.880 --> 00:55:07.260 yeah. 1086 00:55:11.440 --> 00:55:16.680 I stand at the coast, watching the waves, tease the sand, dance with the seaweed, 1087 00:55:16.980 --> 00:55:20.940 moisten the colored moss, rocks of every shade changing with the sun's rays. 1088 00:55:21.640 --> 00:55:26.300 I watch the world, not poisoned by us, I stand at the edge of a country. 1089 00:55:26.580 --> 00:55:32.140 I mess with my back to all the distress, pain, fear, I stand on the lines of maps, 1090 00:55:32.400 --> 00:55:33.760 and I know where I am. 1091 00:55:34.200 --> 00:55:36.860 When I am small, they remind me that I am poor, 1092 00:55:36.880 --> 00:55:38.040 I am born from the same place. 1093 00:55:38.360 --> 00:55:42.180 We crafted the ocean and me by the same hands. 1094 00:55:42.700 --> 00:55:43.980 I know it has demons. 1095 00:55:44.440 --> 00:55:47.840 Sometimes I indulge in their yarns, dip my toes into their home. 1096 00:55:48.080 --> 00:55:49.540 Let the waves carry me. 1097 00:55:50.080 --> 00:55:52.620 When I am too big, they show me that I can be crushed. 1098 00:55:53.280 --> 00:55:56.920 I always come back to sit on the coast until the day goes. 1099 00:55:57.700 --> 00:56:01.640 Somewhere between these parts of the same world, different ideals, different heavens, 1100 00:56:01.860 --> 00:56:05.500 I stand at the coast like I sit on fences, catching breath, 1101 00:56:05.720 --> 00:56:06.820 sifting stories. 1102 00:56:07.400 --> 00:56:12.220 Creating truths, dismantling thought, lost but not. 1103 00:56:13.340 --> 00:56:14.060 Thank you. 1104 00:56:23.060 --> 00:56:25.020 I'm going to finish with this poem. 1105 00:56:25.460 --> 00:56:29.920 In that previous poem, I made a reference to the Cuberpedie Cungajuta. 1106 00:56:30.100 --> 00:56:31.700 That was a collective of grandmothers. 1107 00:56:31.880 --> 00:56:35.240 If you don't know their story, please go to Tandanya. 1108 00:56:35.460 --> 00:56:36.360 Their stories. 1109 00:56:36.880 --> 00:56:39.480 On the wall there at the Maralinga exhibition. 1110 00:56:39.960 --> 00:56:41.680 Go and sit in the circle there. 1111 00:56:41.840 --> 00:56:42.960 Listen to the wind. 1112 00:56:43.180 --> 00:56:44.640 Listen to our story. 1113 00:56:45.180 --> 00:56:49.420 And maybe really think about the nuclear debate in South Australia. 1114 00:56:54.040 --> 00:57:00.420 This is another story that you really need to learn and think about and help us support. 1115 00:57:01.500 --> 00:57:03.540 It's called Black Deaths in Custody. 1116 00:57:04.260 --> 00:57:05.800 They're killing our children. 1117 00:57:06.120 --> 00:57:06.720 Younger. 1118 00:57:06.880 --> 00:57:07.420 And younger. 1119 00:57:10.720 --> 00:57:14.040 Despite the cost, a new jail has been built. 1120 00:57:14.380 --> 00:57:17.160 It seems the incarceration rates are trebling. 1121 00:57:17.620 --> 00:57:21.600 I only came here in the role of a death in custody inspector. 1122 00:57:22.320 --> 00:57:25.040 All the cells are stark and spotless. 1123 00:57:25.460 --> 00:57:27.780 Blank screens watch from the corner. 1124 00:57:28.520 --> 00:57:30.500 The officers have the highest technology. 1125 00:57:31.080 --> 00:57:34.560 The faces of the staff still look the same. 1126 00:57:35.660 --> 00:57:42.680 But when I walk down this wing and peer into this filthy room the door slams behind me. 1127 00:57:42.920 --> 00:57:48.840 The feeling in my heart is changing from a proud strength of duty to fear. 1128 00:57:49.760 --> 00:57:56.060 All the stories I have ever heard stand silent in the space beside me. 1129 00:57:56.960 --> 00:58:02.600 A coil of rope is being pushed under the door of this cell. 1130 00:58:02.960 --> 00:58:03.700 . 1131 00:58:03.700 --> 00:58:04.540 . 1132 00:58:14.840 --> 00:58:15.800 Thank you. 1133 00:58:43.200 --> 00:58:45.820 Thank you. 1134 00:59:11.100 --> 00:59:13.280 Thank you. 1135 00:59:41.800 --> 00:59:44.600 Thank you. 1136 01:00:10.260 --> 01:00:11.720 Thank you. 1137 01:00:46.580 --> 01:00:46.800 Thank you. 1138 01:01:04.560 --> 01:01:06.780 Thank you. 1139 01:01:21.620 --> 01:01:23.160 Thank you. 1140 01:01:34.560 --> 01:01:36.060 Thank you. 1141 01:02:09.600 --> 01:02:09.960 Thank you. 1142 01:02:44.900 --> 01:02:47.700 Thank you. 1143 01:03:04.560 --> 01:03:05.200 Thank you. 1144 01:03:35.120 --> 01:03:35.940 Welcome. 1145 01:04:04.560 --> 01:04:08.060 further and further away from home 1146 01:04:08.060 --> 01:04:12.640 and deeper and deeper into a place where things changed. 1147 01:04:13.940 --> 01:04:17.660 We were put on a 19th century sailing ship and we set off. 1148 01:04:18.860 --> 01:04:20.360 And it was the Arctic summer, 1149 01:04:21.100 --> 01:04:23.340 so the day lasted for about 22 hours. 1150 01:04:24.820 --> 01:04:26.180 The light was unbelievable. 1151 01:04:27.380 --> 01:04:28.580 The silence was unbelievable. 1152 01:04:28.840 --> 01:04:32.100 Our shadows lengthened to the horizon. 1153 01:04:33.360 --> 01:04:34.620 It was magic. 1154 01:04:35.380 --> 01:04:37.840 It was literally awesome. 1155 01:04:38.920 --> 01:04:39.440 Sublime. 1156 01:04:40.200 --> 01:04:45.280 So for the first days we were in an amazement at the beauty of it. 1157 01:04:45.400 --> 01:04:48.700 We were almost like tourists of this sublime place. 1158 01:04:49.420 --> 01:04:51.560 And of course it was going to take us a long time 1159 01:04:52.140 --> 01:04:54.420 to learn to look at this properly 1160 01:04:54.420 --> 01:04:57.800 and to really even begin to understand it. 1161 01:04:57.880 --> 01:04:59.580 So the journey was an education. 1162 01:05:00.780 --> 01:05:02.080 Really of a bunch of... 1163 01:05:02.100 --> 01:05:05.520 good people, but kind of idiots about this sort of thing. 1164 01:05:05.580 --> 01:05:06.240 I'll speak for myself. 1165 01:05:08.500 --> 01:05:10.840 And once we got past the sublimity of it, 1166 01:05:10.920 --> 01:05:13.160 we also found ourselves as a group 1167 01:05:13.160 --> 01:05:18.940 feeling very needy of things which were very exposed. 1168 01:05:19.080 --> 01:05:21.000 We needed our food and we needed our sleep. 1169 01:05:21.160 --> 01:05:23.020 We needed our Apple Macs. 1170 01:05:23.020 --> 01:05:23.920 We needed our laptops. 1171 01:05:24.120 --> 01:05:25.340 We didn't have internet connections. 1172 01:05:25.680 --> 01:05:29.780 And it was very shocking how upset we were 1173 01:05:29.780 --> 01:05:30.780 not to have those things. 1174 01:05:31.200 --> 01:05:32.020 But every day, 1175 01:05:32.020 --> 01:05:33.320 we would go out onto the land. 1176 01:05:33.600 --> 01:05:34.920 And the land was the wonder. 1177 01:05:36.060 --> 01:05:38.260 And of course as a group we would go off 1178 01:05:38.260 --> 01:05:39.760 and we would talk and talk and talk and talk. 1179 01:05:39.980 --> 01:05:43.480 And it would be the rustle of our kind of our technical clothing. 1180 01:05:44.600 --> 01:05:46.200 And then after a while someone would say, 1181 01:05:46.340 --> 01:05:47.940 why don't we just shut the fuck up? 1182 01:05:48.100 --> 01:05:49.040 Stop talking. 1183 01:05:49.140 --> 01:05:54.260 Listen. And as we did that, something really special happened. 1184 01:05:57.400 --> 01:05:58.620 Fold up the charts. 1185 01:05:59.980 --> 01:06:01.140 Close the guidebooks. 1186 01:06:01.140 --> 01:06:03.020 And the scrolls of information. 1187 01:06:04.820 --> 01:06:06.360 Turn the engines off. 1188 01:06:08.140 --> 01:06:09.900 Let the laptop sleep. 1189 01:06:11.780 --> 01:06:16.700 Let plans and speculations and the names of things go. 1190 01:06:19.260 --> 01:06:19.960 Pick up a stone. 1191 01:06:21.380 --> 01:06:22.400 Hold it in your hand. 1192 01:06:24.120 --> 01:06:26.080 This is the history of the world. 1193 01:06:28.120 --> 01:06:29.960 Watch the animal of the light. 1194 01:06:30.260 --> 01:06:30.300 Always. 1195 01:06:31.100 --> 01:06:31.120 Always. 1196 01:06:31.140 --> 01:06:35.440 Always moving away across the land in its own time. 1197 01:06:37.060 --> 01:06:40.760 And when the silence comes, welcome it. 1198 01:06:41.600 --> 01:06:45.100 For it makes you think and dream. 1199 01:06:47.000 --> 01:06:47.720 Thank you. 1200 01:06:54.140 --> 01:06:54.680 Ali. 1201 01:06:57.500 --> 01:06:57.980 Yeah. 1202 01:06:58.080 --> 01:07:00.540 Do you mind if I talk a bit more to you about your poem? 1203 01:07:01.140 --> 01:07:01.460 Sure. 1204 01:07:01.460 --> 01:07:02.380 Or do you want me to read it for you? 1205 01:07:02.480 --> 01:07:02.500 Yeah. 1206 01:07:02.540 --> 01:07:02.800 Of course. 1207 01:07:02.840 --> 01:07:04.040 Because I know we decided to swap. 1208 01:07:04.180 --> 01:07:07.540 But I just wanted to say that it's so interesting to me that, you know, 1209 01:07:07.580 --> 01:07:13.420 say in a big, well, in any really before, even during industrial revolution, 1210 01:07:13.620 --> 01:07:16.920 19th century, all of that stuff happening with the decline of life 1211 01:07:16.920 --> 01:07:19.760 in the rural parts and the explosion of the big cities, 1212 01:07:19.880 --> 01:07:23.320 you could still get away from the city. 1213 01:07:23.480 --> 01:07:24.800 You could still be a Wordsworth. 1214 01:07:24.920 --> 01:07:25.920 You could still go somewhere. 1215 01:07:26.020 --> 01:07:30.260 Whereas it seems to me now, especially last, you know, 20 years or whatever, 1216 01:07:30.420 --> 01:07:31.120 there is nowhere to go. 1217 01:07:31.140 --> 01:07:31.760 To escape to. 1218 01:07:31.840 --> 01:07:32.180 Yeah. 1219 01:07:32.300 --> 01:07:34.360 From the tyranny of the digital really is there. 1220 01:07:34.500 --> 01:07:37.280 I mean, where can you really be free from technology? 1221 01:07:37.780 --> 01:07:38.120 Yes. 1222 01:07:38.420 --> 01:07:40.840 So you have to go all the way to the Arctic. 1223 01:07:41.180 --> 01:07:42.020 I had to go a long way. 1224 01:07:42.320 --> 01:07:42.660 Yeah. 1225 01:07:42.680 --> 01:07:42.860 Yeah. 1226 01:07:42.860 --> 01:07:46.020 So it's one of the few places that you can get away from yourself. 1227 01:07:47.720 --> 01:07:49.020 And that matters a great deal. 1228 01:07:49.220 --> 01:07:49.480 Yeah. 1229 01:07:49.700 --> 01:07:50.040 Yeah. 1230 01:07:51.360 --> 01:07:52.480 Let me ask you a question. 1231 01:07:52.600 --> 01:07:52.920 Yes, please. 1232 01:07:53.040 --> 01:07:56.940 So I was looking at your wonderful collection of poems, Ashes in the Air. 1233 01:07:57.160 --> 01:07:59.680 And this is a thing of home here. 1234 01:07:59.920 --> 01:08:00.900 But it seems to me that. 1235 01:08:01.140 --> 01:08:03.340 These are poems of all over the world and of the world. 1236 01:08:03.600 --> 01:08:05.660 And I wondered if you'd like to say something about that. 1237 01:08:05.780 --> 01:08:06.620 Yeah, sure, sure. 1238 01:08:06.840 --> 01:08:12.760 I mean, I mean, unlike you, I guess I thought I'd go to places of, you know, 1239 01:08:12.780 --> 01:08:15.840 nature versus culture versus nature because of my interest in, 1240 01:08:15.840 --> 01:08:18.260 and especially what's happening in the world today. 1241 01:08:18.380 --> 01:08:24.280 And I was, I guess, kind of attracted to the uniqueness 1242 01:08:24.280 --> 01:08:26.880 of a particularity or specificity of a play. 1243 01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:28.700 And I thought, well, okay, what is a city? 1244 01:08:28.780 --> 01:08:30.940 What is, what's particularly happening, say, in China? 1245 01:08:31.140 --> 01:08:32.300 For example, I was really interested. 1246 01:08:32.600 --> 01:08:33.900 Lived there for a couple of years. 1247 01:08:34.480 --> 01:08:38.280 But little by little, I came to understand that actually whatever is happening 1248 01:08:38.280 --> 01:08:40.180 in one place is happening elsewhere. 1249 01:08:40.520 --> 01:08:45.680 And this is the kind of the terrible, you know, universalizing effect of capital, really, 1250 01:08:45.800 --> 01:08:49.080 and how cities are becoming the dumping ground for capital everywhere. 1251 01:08:49.380 --> 01:08:56.180 And I think that, you know, those of you who are from Adelaide, you know, it's kind of interesting 1252 01:08:56.180 --> 01:09:00.520 to see not so many construction sites here as opposed to Melbourne, which is now one vast, 1253 01:09:01.140 --> 01:09:01.480 you know, construction site. 1254 01:09:01.640 --> 01:09:03.720 And the city is becoming totally unrecognizable. 1255 01:09:03.960 --> 01:09:06.220 But of course, the cost of living is going up. 1256 01:09:06.520 --> 01:09:08.220 It's quite out of control. 1257 01:09:08.500 --> 01:09:10.280 And I first saw that in Dubai. 1258 01:09:10.820 --> 01:09:18.820 And I was, yeah, it's kind of interesting how much of everywhere is either becoming that. 1259 01:09:18.960 --> 01:09:21.380 And that's where there's development and new economy. 1260 01:09:21.420 --> 01:09:24.940 That's meant to be good, which I'm not sure if it is. 1261 01:09:25.020 --> 01:09:29.800 But apparently, because people who already own property are making so much money, 1262 01:09:29.920 --> 01:09:31.120 the property becomes so much more expensive. 1263 01:09:31.120 --> 01:09:46.580 And I think that's a very negative thing. 1264 01:09:46.820 --> 01:09:47.600 I think that's a negative thing. 1265 01:09:47.600 --> 01:09:48.020 I think that's a negative thing. 1266 01:09:48.020 --> 01:09:48.180 I think that's a negative thing. 1267 01:09:48.180 --> 01:09:49.060 I think that's a negative thing. 1268 01:09:49.060 --> 01:09:49.180 I think that's a negative thing. 1269 01:09:49.280 --> 01:09:49.540 I think that's a negative thing. 1270 01:09:49.540 --> 01:09:49.560 I think that's a negative thing. 1271 01:09:49.560 --> 01:09:49.640 I think that's a negative thing. 1272 01:09:49.760 --> 01:09:50.600 I think that's a negative thing. 1273 01:09:50.820 --> 01:09:52.600 I think that's a negative thing. 1274 01:09:54.700 --> 01:09:57.060 I think that's a negative thing. 1275 01:09:57.060 --> 01:09:59.000 I think that's a negative thing. 1276 01:09:59.060 --> 01:10:00.620 I think that's a negative thing. 1277 01:10:01.120 --> 01:10:04.820 like a very unusual and abstract place and not real at all. 1278 01:10:05.040 --> 01:10:07.120 But this is a poem about that. 1279 01:10:07.620 --> 01:10:08.840 It's called Dubai. 1280 01:10:09.780 --> 01:10:13.560 I can't pretend there's beauty to exhume 1281 01:10:13.560 --> 01:10:17.000 from these slabs, concrete and sandstone 1282 01:10:17.000 --> 01:10:20.460 planted in the sand funereal totems. 1283 01:10:20.700 --> 01:10:23.080 I can't harmonize with the drill 1284 01:10:23.080 --> 01:10:26.320 fracturing the boulders beneath the desert, 1285 01:10:27.160 --> 01:10:30.160 puncturing the landscape, holes to insert, 1286 01:10:31.120 --> 01:10:32.680 pillars as foundations, 1287 01:10:33.720 --> 01:10:37.740 for incipient towers towards an uncontrollable 1288 01:10:37.740 --> 01:10:39.380 concrete forest. 1289 01:10:40.400 --> 01:10:42.660 But palm trees remain, inspire 1290 01:10:42.660 --> 01:10:45.460 the outline of the artificial island, 1291 01:10:45.560 --> 01:10:48.220 beach resort to A-list celebrities. 1292 01:10:50.520 --> 01:10:53.480 Brad and Angelina Jolie were going to buy themselves 1293 01:10:53.480 --> 01:10:55.120 one of those islands back then. 1294 01:10:55.160 --> 01:10:56.560 They're not connected anymore, 1295 01:10:56.740 --> 01:11:01.100 so I wonder if they're going to have a straight line. 1296 01:11:01.120 --> 01:11:01.380 I don't know. 1297 01:11:01.760 --> 01:11:03.940 Camels happy and harmonized, 1298 01:11:03.940 --> 01:11:07.200 logos on T-shirts at the gargantuan mall, 1299 01:11:07.400 --> 01:11:10.500 the largest in the world outside of USA. 1300 01:11:10.980 --> 01:11:13.560 Burger King and coat don't clash, 1301 01:11:13.800 --> 01:11:16.720 but compliment the Arabic kitsch. 1302 01:11:16.820 --> 01:11:20.740 I can't conjure my gifts, meager as they are, 1303 01:11:20.900 --> 01:11:23.340 enough to reassemble this reality 1304 01:11:23.340 --> 01:11:27.240 in an aesthetically refined string of words. 1305 01:11:27.860 --> 01:11:30.780 Only this beveled cluster of clauses, 1306 01:11:31.120 --> 01:11:35.360 summoned by a colossus of a place called Dubai. 1307 01:11:43.980 --> 01:11:48.640 Nick, you went up there with scientists. 1308 01:11:49.000 --> 01:11:49.680 Yes. 1309 01:11:50.380 --> 01:11:53.880 What can an artist do that scientists can't do 1310 01:11:53.880 --> 01:11:56.700 in helping us understand global warming? 1311 01:11:58.240 --> 01:12:00.620 Well, I think the short answer is tell stories. 1312 01:12:01.280 --> 01:12:04.060 And the other short answer is the imagination, 1313 01:12:04.940 --> 01:12:08.040 which is something that every human being has 1314 01:12:08.040 --> 01:12:11.460 and that is suppressed and conquered in many places, 1315 01:12:11.520 --> 01:12:13.660 but is an undeniable liberty to all of us. 1316 01:12:13.780 --> 01:12:15.320 And it's the way we think for ourselves 1317 01:12:15.320 --> 01:12:16.280 through the imagination. 1318 01:12:16.920 --> 01:12:19.220 But I have to say I found the scientists wonderful people. 1319 01:12:19.680 --> 01:12:21.220 I didn't know many scientists. 1320 01:12:21.340 --> 01:12:21.860 I don't know why, 1321 01:12:21.980 --> 01:12:26.160 but they're fantastically passionate and engaged 1322 01:12:26.160 --> 01:12:29.440 and interested in the world and in what they wanted to do. 1323 01:12:29.600 --> 01:12:30.440 And one of the things 1324 01:12:30.440 --> 01:12:34.780 that they did for me was they taught me to look beyond 1325 01:12:34.780 --> 01:12:36.800 what I was thinking I was looking at. 1326 01:12:37.140 --> 01:12:39.220 And in particular, this was true of ice. 1327 01:12:40.080 --> 01:12:42.280 So, you know, we looked at the ice and we thought, 1328 01:12:42.380 --> 01:12:44.140 it's so beautiful, it's so wonderful. 1329 01:12:44.340 --> 01:12:46.700 Look at the polar bear prints on this piece of ice. 1330 01:12:46.940 --> 01:12:49.480 So it was very aesthetic sort of experience for us. 1331 01:12:50.600 --> 01:12:53.080 But no, there's more to it than that, of course. 1332 01:12:53.140 --> 01:12:55.480 Ice is a treasury. 1333 01:12:56.120 --> 01:12:59.160 It's the most crucial thing in a sense that we own, 1334 01:12:59.240 --> 01:13:00.420 because we're not going to be able to do it. 1335 01:13:00.420 --> 01:13:05.280 The ice of the Arctic reflects back solar radiation. 1336 01:13:06.600 --> 01:13:11.340 And it's maintained this kind of luxury climate stability 1337 01:13:11.340 --> 01:13:15.120 which we have had for many, many, many thousands of years. 1338 01:13:15.240 --> 01:13:15.960 It's crucial. 1339 01:13:16.060 --> 01:13:18.940 And without that, all the solar radiation comes 1340 01:13:18.940 --> 01:13:20.040 into the Arctic Ocean. 1341 01:13:20.160 --> 01:13:21.320 It goes into the ocean. 1342 01:13:21.380 --> 01:13:22.140 It warms the ocean. 1343 01:13:22.260 --> 01:13:24.640 And that has huge consequences. 1344 01:13:25.600 --> 01:13:27.580 So I needed to learn that. 1345 01:13:28.340 --> 01:13:30.000 It's a very, very important story. 1346 01:13:33.200 --> 01:13:35.700 But I, what do I want to say? 1347 01:13:35.980 --> 01:13:39.340 Then I was introduced to the idea that scientists know 1348 01:13:39.340 --> 01:13:42.980 about climate largely through ice core drilling 1349 01:13:42.980 --> 01:13:43.900 and ice core samples. 1350 01:13:44.060 --> 01:13:45.120 I don't know if you know about this. 1351 01:13:45.160 --> 01:13:46.060 I didn't really know about it. 1352 01:13:46.120 --> 01:13:48.100 But they drill down through glaciers. 1353 01:13:48.100 --> 01:13:50.020 They go down hundreds of thousands of feet. 1354 01:13:50.080 --> 01:13:51.600 And they draw out a column of ice. 1355 01:13:51.900 --> 01:13:56.600 And that column is the unique record of the climate 1356 01:13:56.600 --> 01:13:58.620 of the earth going back millions of years. 1357 01:13:58.820 --> 01:14:00.400 So basically, every winter, we're going to have a new ice. 1358 01:14:00.420 --> 01:14:01.620 And every winter, it's like a library. 1359 01:14:01.780 --> 01:14:05.580 Every winter lays down a page which is no more 1360 01:14:05.580 --> 01:14:09.060 than a millimeter thick, which carries the information 1361 01:14:09.060 --> 01:14:11.060 of the atmosphere at that time. 1362 01:14:12.520 --> 01:14:16.000 So that's a fantastic science thing to do. 1363 01:14:16.180 --> 01:14:20.340 But it also made me think about time and about how we think 1364 01:14:20.340 --> 01:14:22.920 of our own personal time, the scope of our lives, 1365 01:14:23.120 --> 01:14:26.100 the scope of our society, the scope of our history. 1366 01:14:26.240 --> 01:14:29.440 And then the scope of geological time 1367 01:14:29.440 --> 01:14:34.260 in which we're kind of two ticks of a clock, which is a year long. 1368 01:14:35.220 --> 01:14:37.820 So this is a poem in the voice of an ice core sample. 1369 01:14:38.080 --> 01:14:40.360 I think it's the only one in existence. 1370 01:14:42.820 --> 01:14:45.620 Oh, by the way, I had to go and read this a couple of months ago 1371 01:14:45.620 --> 01:14:48.620 at an ice core sample storage room, 1372 01:14:48.740 --> 01:14:53.200 which I thought was pretty bloody exciting until I got into it. 1373 01:14:53.240 --> 01:14:56.180 And it was minus 35 degrees because these are 1374 01:14:56.180 --> 01:14:56.880 like creatures. 1375 01:14:57.020 --> 01:14:57.660 They're like dinosaurs. 1376 01:14:57.780 --> 01:14:59.060 You have to keep them at that temperature. 1377 01:14:59.180 --> 01:14:59.420 Otherwise, they're just going to die. 1378 01:14:59.420 --> 01:15:00.040 Otherwise, they're gone. 1379 01:15:00.940 --> 01:15:03.760 And it was thrilling for about 30 seconds. 1380 01:15:04.740 --> 01:15:08.020 And then about 32 seconds, I thought, I'm going to die 1381 01:15:08.020 --> 01:15:12.420 because the ice just gets into every capillary in your eyes 1382 01:15:12.420 --> 01:15:13.880 and your ears and your hair and your nose. 1383 01:15:13.980 --> 01:15:16.040 And you think you're going to die. 1384 01:15:16.220 --> 01:15:18.460 Anyway, the amusing thing about it was 1385 01:15:18.460 --> 01:15:22.140 that the director let me read it once. 1386 01:15:22.220 --> 01:15:23.760 And then she said, I think you should do it again. 1387 01:15:24.820 --> 01:15:27.040 She made me do it four times. 1388 01:15:28.660 --> 01:15:29.400 So by the way, I'm not going to do it again. 1389 01:15:29.400 --> 01:15:30.740 And by the end of it, I was in intensive care, 1390 01:15:31.320 --> 01:15:33.480 which is the revenge of the ice core sample. 1391 01:15:34.380 --> 01:15:35.300 The ice core. 1392 01:15:37.340 --> 01:15:44.200 I am a long story, 10,000 feet long, a million years old, 1393 01:15:45.180 --> 01:15:49.420 a chronicle of lost time, back to the first dark, 1394 01:15:50.220 --> 01:15:51.640 too dark for telling. 1395 01:15:53.140 --> 01:15:55.340 I am every winter's fall. 1396 01:15:56.620 --> 01:15:58.500 I am the keeper of the air, 1397 01:15:58.660 --> 01:15:59.380 of the air. 1398 01:15:59.380 --> 01:16:00.860 I am the keeper of all the vanished summers. 1399 01:16:02.720 --> 01:16:07.820 I distill lost atmospheres pressed into ghosts kept close 1400 01:16:08.520 --> 01:16:10.940 to my cold, old heart. 1401 01:16:13.020 --> 01:16:17.460 And as for you, what story would you like to hear 1402 01:16:18.460 --> 01:16:22.320 on your two feet tracking the snow two by two, 1403 01:16:23.140 --> 01:16:25.420 two by two, two by two? 1404 01:16:27.500 --> 01:16:29.160 Here is the dust and music 1405 01:16:29.380 --> 01:16:30.900 of your brief cities. 1406 01:16:32.960 --> 01:16:34.840 Here is the ash and smoke. 1407 01:16:35.860 --> 01:16:39.120 Here are your traffic jams and vapor trails. 1408 01:16:40.140 --> 01:16:44.100 Here are your holidays in the sun and your masterpieces 1409 01:16:44.100 --> 01:16:45.880 and your pop songs. 1410 01:16:47.780 --> 01:16:51.340 Here are your first cries and your last whispers. 1411 01:16:53.520 --> 01:16:56.860 Here is where it went right and where it went wrong. 1412 01:16:58.040 --> 01:16:59.360 Easy come, easy go. 1413 01:16:59.360 --> 01:17:06.700 So I know why you slice moon after moon from me, 1414 01:17:07.620 --> 01:17:10.980 holding each fragile disk up to your searchlights. 1415 01:17:12.200 --> 01:17:16.720 Why you measure and record the tiny cracks and snaps 1416 01:17:17.480 --> 01:17:18.620 of my melting mysteries. 1417 01:17:20.480 --> 01:17:24.900 Because you know you are the people who have changed nature. 1418 01:17:26.600 --> 01:17:27.720 And now you're on your own. 1419 01:17:28.520 --> 01:17:29.340 You're on your own. 1420 01:17:29.360 --> 01:17:38.420 I have no more to tell, no questions, please, about the future, for now the great narrator 1421 01:17:38.420 --> 01:17:40.500 silence takes over. 1422 01:17:42.200 --> 01:17:46.480 Listen carefully to her story, for you are in it. 1423 01:18:03.060 --> 01:18:05.280 Ali, tell us about other places, that was Dubai. 1424 01:18:06.400 --> 01:18:18.400 Other places, well, yeah, well, I mean, after a lot of the traveling, came back to Australia, 1425 01:18:18.480 --> 01:18:22.480 and I kind of found that, especially when I was living in Dubai, towards the end of 1426 01:18:22.480 --> 01:18:28.440 it, I just really kind of withdrew from the real world, if you like, and I thought, well, 1427 01:18:28.460 --> 01:18:29.040 what are the problems? 1428 01:18:29.040 --> 01:18:34.300 And this was especially after the 2008 global financial crisis, and I totally agree with 1429 01:18:34.300 --> 01:18:41.540 you that global warming is a great problem, the greatest problem possibly, but I will 1430 01:18:41.540 --> 01:18:46.080 also say there's another greatest problem, and that's global capitalism, which kind of 1431 01:18:46.080 --> 01:18:50.580 contributes to that other problem, and I think that, and this is where I kind of thought, 1432 01:18:50.680 --> 01:18:53.180 well, what can we learn from it? 1433 01:18:53.300 --> 01:18:58.480 And I started to really investigate. 1434 01:18:58.500 --> 01:18:59.020 Yeah. 1435 01:18:59.040 --> 01:19:05.800 I started to really look at the world of philosophers, and read more and more, and a lot of my poetry 1436 01:19:05.800 --> 01:19:12.980 of the recent last few years has really been about me just reading a philosopher and writing 1437 01:19:12.980 --> 01:19:13.680 about it. 1438 01:19:13.880 --> 01:19:18.160 Now, how am I going to try to get away by reading those poems in a session like this, 1439 01:19:18.240 --> 01:19:19.340 which is about home? 1440 01:19:19.460 --> 01:19:23.420 Well, and I know this is going to sound utterly pretentious, but that has sort of become my 1441 01:19:23.420 --> 01:19:27.220 home, the world of books and philosophers. 1442 01:19:27.540 --> 01:19:28.100 And that's... 1443 01:19:29.380 --> 01:19:32.080 And I think that that's kind of also... 1444 01:19:33.460 --> 01:19:37.540 Someone like me has had the experience of growing up, and when I was a child in a place 1445 01:19:37.540 --> 01:19:43.120 where there was war and then there was a migrant, et cetera, you sort of have to find new ways 1446 01:19:43.120 --> 01:19:47.900 of belonging, I suppose, and this is one place where I found where I could belong in a way. 1447 01:19:49.480 --> 01:19:56.460 So I think one idea of philosophers that I find really interesting is if the world is 1448 01:19:56.460 --> 01:19:57.500 really as messed up... 1449 01:19:57.500 --> 01:19:57.620 Yeah. 1450 01:19:57.620 --> 01:19:58.080 ...as we have been. 1451 01:19:58.080 --> 01:20:00.780 And I think we've all been saying that it is, and let's be honest, it is. 1452 01:20:00.860 --> 01:20:02.200 We're not making any of it up. 1453 01:20:02.320 --> 01:20:03.720 It is really that... 1454 01:20:04.240 --> 01:20:06.340 I don't know if I'm allowed to swear or not. 1455 01:20:06.940 --> 01:20:08.260 It's really fucked up. 1456 01:20:09.100 --> 01:20:09.540 Good. 1457 01:20:09.680 --> 01:20:12.840 I actually had all the swear words in the next poem crossed out. 1458 01:20:13.060 --> 01:20:15.500 I had to screw instead of... 1459 01:20:15.500 --> 01:20:15.760 But anyway. 1460 01:20:16.720 --> 01:20:21.340 But I think if we are all saying it, one question is, well, why can't we do anything about it? 1461 01:20:21.400 --> 01:20:22.340 Why hasn't it changed? 1462 01:20:22.700 --> 01:20:26.560 We've been better in the past historically, but now we're at a complete deadlock. 1463 01:20:26.960 --> 01:20:27.960 We can't take... 1464 01:20:27.960 --> 01:20:28.700 We can't take a step forward. 1465 01:20:28.780 --> 01:20:30.760 We're just taking steps backward, I think. 1466 01:20:32.280 --> 01:20:36.640 And there's a philosopher, 18th century philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and he had a really 1467 01:20:36.640 --> 01:20:38.580 excellent idea called the general will. 1468 01:20:39.240 --> 01:20:44.220 And I thought, hang on, when all the people, to put it most simply, when there is something 1469 01:20:44.220 --> 01:20:49.460 we really want, and sometimes that can just take a course, historical course. 1470 01:20:49.560 --> 01:20:52.660 So one great example of the general will is the French Revolution. 1471 01:20:53.000 --> 01:20:55.420 The entire nation did change the course of history. 1472 01:20:56.560 --> 01:20:57.760 What would that look like? 1473 01:20:57.960 --> 01:21:03.680 Today, here's a poem to kind of speculate on the general will. 1474 01:21:05.360 --> 01:21:06.880 The general will. 1475 01:21:07.900 --> 01:21:10.360 You know what you want. 1476 01:21:11.420 --> 01:21:14.240 Isn't this a new wig? 1477 01:21:14.880 --> 01:21:15.920 Say, a new culotte? 1478 01:21:16.820 --> 01:21:18.060 Not even the promotion. 1479 01:21:19.280 --> 01:21:19.680 Be honest. 1480 01:21:20.200 --> 01:21:23.120 Enough to say, you want me? 1481 01:21:24.900 --> 01:21:27.440 Riding under the heel of your boot. 1482 01:21:27.960 --> 01:21:30.480 Because power demands it. 1483 01:21:31.760 --> 01:21:33.180 Fuck ethics. 1484 01:21:34.340 --> 01:21:34.640 Really. 1485 01:21:35.680 --> 01:21:37.760 You don't know what you need. 1486 01:21:38.540 --> 01:21:41.160 Beyond persistence in survival. 1487 01:21:42.480 --> 01:21:43.320 A new carriage. 1488 01:21:43.540 --> 01:21:46.440 Say, a knight at the new brothel. 1489 01:21:46.540 --> 01:21:48.280 Maybe an electric car. 1490 01:21:49.420 --> 01:21:51.780 But will you will to possess? 1491 01:21:52.800 --> 01:21:55.900 To power over my bare life? 1492 01:21:58.080 --> 01:21:59.320 Fuck desire. 1493 01:22:00.040 --> 01:22:00.860 Seriously. 1494 01:22:01.960 --> 01:22:05.940 I have studied the marquee maddened by the brutality, 1495 01:22:06.140 --> 01:22:07.960 by the banality of pleasure. 1496 01:22:08.180 --> 01:22:14.000 Even whipping a whore like me could not help him ejaculate. 1497 01:22:15.240 --> 01:22:18.000 I've been walking, solitary. 1498 01:22:18.440 --> 01:22:21.440 Be honest with the universe. 1499 01:22:21.800 --> 01:22:26.180 Welcome disintegration of what is you. 1500 01:22:26.340 --> 01:22:27.760 A new self. 1501 01:22:27.760 --> 01:22:28.580 A new selfie, say. 1502 01:22:31.340 --> 01:22:35.960 Handcrafted, artisanal, bespoke, innovative mirror? 1503 01:22:36.620 --> 01:22:41.960 Do you see anything other than human-shaped shit? 1504 01:22:43.400 --> 01:22:45.720 Let's go this way. 1505 01:22:45.840 --> 01:22:49.640 It is a lovely day for losing oneself. 1506 01:22:50.400 --> 01:22:51.840 Walk with us. 1507 01:22:52.040 --> 01:22:54.440 There is so much more to see. 1508 01:22:55.900 --> 01:22:56.920 Thank you. 1509 01:22:57.860 --> 01:22:58.780 Thank you. 1510 01:23:06.980 --> 01:23:12.400 It's no, I think no accident that the exponential decline in the health of the planet 1511 01:23:12.400 --> 01:23:18.420 matches the growth of Western industrial capitalism. 1512 01:23:19.280 --> 01:23:20.220 It's no mistake. 1513 01:23:20.660 --> 01:23:26.100 And looking at the Arctic, I had to think a lot about the way that the way we live now 1514 01:23:26.860 --> 01:23:28.540 is paid for in other places. 1515 01:23:31.960 --> 01:23:35.180 In particular, in the ice and the water of the Arctic, 1516 01:23:35.500 --> 01:23:37.860 mercury has been found everywhere. 1517 01:23:38.100 --> 01:23:40.720 The place looks wonderful, but mercury is in all the water. 1518 01:23:41.340 --> 01:23:43.900 Mercury is used in coal-fired... 1519 01:23:43.900 --> 01:23:45.780 It's a product of coal-fired power stations. 1520 01:23:45.920 --> 01:23:47.240 It's in batteries and light bulbs. 1521 01:23:47.440 --> 01:23:49.080 It's in kind of everything that we use 1522 01:23:49.080 --> 01:23:50.920 and have been using for quite a long time. 1523 01:23:51.140 --> 01:23:54.300 But it has, I think, what is called 1524 01:23:54.300 --> 01:23:56.020 a multiplying effect in the food chain, 1525 01:23:56.160 --> 01:23:57.920 so the effects of it get worse 1526 01:23:57.920 --> 01:24:00.140 the higher up the food chain you go. 1527 01:24:01.480 --> 01:24:03.100 But mercury has its own story, 1528 01:24:03.820 --> 01:24:06.400 and if I can find it, I will tell it to you. 1529 01:24:07.960 --> 01:24:08.860 Put that on there. 1530 01:24:11.520 --> 01:24:12.180 Don't say that. 1531 01:24:14.840 --> 01:24:17.080 We were born in your dream of the future. 1532 01:24:18.740 --> 01:24:19.880 Released by fire, 1533 01:24:20.560 --> 01:24:23.580 we ascended the winding stairs of the smokestacks. 1534 01:24:24.300 --> 01:24:27.560 Until we reached the orange sunset and the blue sky. 1535 01:24:28.800 --> 01:24:30.340 No one waved goodbye. 1536 01:24:31.480 --> 01:24:32.860 No one saw us go. 1537 01:24:33.760 --> 01:24:36.540 We were uncountable and invisible. 1538 01:24:37.780 --> 01:24:40.860 One way or another, we were carried north 1539 01:24:40.860 --> 01:24:43.280 in the hands of the winds, 1540 01:24:44.200 --> 01:24:45.720 on the wheels of the rivers, 1541 01:24:45.880 --> 01:24:48.560 by the generosity of the oceans. 1542 01:24:49.820 --> 01:24:53.800 And when we arrived at the cold top of the world, 1543 01:24:54.300 --> 01:24:56.660 it felt like home, sweet home. 1544 01:24:58.140 --> 01:25:00.720 And we waited in the long darkness 1545 01:25:00.720 --> 01:25:04.400 until at last the first light of the year 1546 01:25:04.400 --> 01:25:07.460 transmuted us out of thin air. 1547 01:25:08.300 --> 01:25:13.680 And we came to rest in ice and snow and black water. 1548 01:25:15.300 --> 01:25:18.220 Now we accumulate and magnify 1549 01:25:18.220 --> 01:25:21.940 in the cells of fish, in the eggs of birds, 1550 01:25:22.120 --> 01:25:24.160 in the birds, inside the warm coats, 1551 01:25:24.300 --> 01:25:26.220 of seals and bears. 1552 01:25:27.800 --> 01:25:30.600 And in the wombs of mothers, we concentrate. 1553 01:25:32.140 --> 01:25:35.800 So the faces of the future take on our features. 1554 01:25:37.380 --> 01:25:41.220 And we sing our names into the ears of the unborn. 1555 01:25:43.560 --> 01:25:47.000 Cesium, technetium, mercury. 1556 01:26:20.320 --> 01:26:23.120 And the 1557 01:26:09.820 --> 01:26:11.120 ! 1558 01:26:24.300 --> 01:26:29.820 something I read in an interview with the contemporary philosopher Jacques Ancien. He 1559 01:26:29.820 --> 01:26:37.400 says the political struggle is also the struggle for the appropriation of words. We, as in, 1560 01:26:37.460 --> 01:26:45.940 you know, not the French, yes, but W-E, we. Oh, I could play with that. We are decent. 1561 01:26:45.940 --> 01:26:54.280 We love our country and our liberty. We earn a living off the profits of thingifying nature 1562 01:26:54.280 --> 01:27:03.420 for rich trading partners who pay us with the blood of terrorized workers. We hear the 1563 01:27:03.420 --> 01:27:09.340 chit-chat between the puppets of capital, prime minister and up-leader, and give our 1564 01:27:09.340 --> 01:27:14.160 consent to their triviality via free and fair elections. 1565 01:27:14.940 --> 01:27:15.680 We 1566 01:27:15.680 --> 01:27:15.800 dream 1567 01:27:15.800 --> 01:27:24.120 of feeling happiness as psyches rejoice at buying iPhones and designer socks, a life 1568 01:27:24.120 --> 01:27:33.980 finally expiating its futility with a 2% pay rise. We purr when coddled in the arms of 1569 01:27:33.980 --> 01:27:41.640 a community founded on culture and religion, hiding behind a mask of heritage. We are really 1570 01:27:41.640 --> 01:27:43.480 like that. 1571 01:27:45.120 --> 01:27:45.440 I 1572 01:27:45.440 --> 01:27:57.040 wake up early or surrender to my insomnia to daydream about another we. The people flummoxed 1573 01:27:57.040 --> 01:28:04.940 by so much fantasy struggle and wander towards the truth of an event after the idea of equality 1574 01:28:06.080 --> 01:28:12.900 for a humanity that won't be conditioned by a pronoun when we are the name of the immeasurable 1575 01:28:13.520 --> 01:28:15.420 power to rupture the reality. We are the people who are the ones who are the ones who are the 1576 01:28:15.420 --> 01:28:21.100 reality of the world and instigate new worlds, the traces of eternity. 1577 01:28:24.200 --> 01:28:24.980 . 1578 01:28:27.200 --> 01:28:27.980 . 1579 01:28:27.980 --> 01:28:28.080 . 1580 01:28:28.080 --> 01:28:28.480 . 1581 01:28:28.480 --> 01:28:28.780 ! 1582 01:28:28.780 --> 01:28:30.600 Thank you. 1583 01:29:10.400 --> 01:29:13.200 Thank you. 1584 01:29:37.760 --> 01:29:40.560 Thank you. 1585 01:30:07.900 --> 01:30:10.700 Thank you. 1586 01:30:36.940 --> 01:30:38.520 Thank you. 1587 01:31:03.960 --> 01:31:06.620 Thank you. 1588 01:31:28.780 --> 01:31:30.260 Thank you. 1589 01:31:58.780 --> 01:31:59.220 Thank you. 1590 01:32:55.940 --> 01:32:58.740 Thank you. 1591 01:32:58.780 --> 01:32:59.720 Thank you. 1592 01:33:28.780 --> 01:33:29.080 Welcome. 1593 01:33:58.780 --> 01:34:03.500 I think it's a perfectly okay answer that as a writer you're a traveller 1594 01:34:03.500 --> 01:34:07.320 and you're a traveller in thought, I guess, as well as in place. 1595 01:34:08.520 --> 01:34:09.000 Yeah? 1596 01:34:09.100 --> 01:34:13.420 How has it helped you in terms of doing the work, the writing that you do? 1597 01:34:14.620 --> 01:34:19.280 I think I really believe that we create ourselves through our stories. 1598 01:34:19.420 --> 01:34:22.200 So in the same way that if you hear something enough times 1599 01:34:22.200 --> 01:34:26.400 you start to believe it, it's the same in the way that you talk about yourself 1600 01:34:26.400 --> 01:34:29.100 and the way that you talk about the people around you or whatever else. 1601 01:34:29.380 --> 01:34:34.100 So I see a great evolution in the way that I was writing in the past 1602 01:34:34.100 --> 01:34:35.320 into how I'm writing now. 1603 01:34:37.380 --> 01:34:39.180 And it's almost like the chicken or the egg. 1604 01:34:39.240 --> 01:34:41.960 I don't know if it's that my situation is changing or the stories are changing 1605 01:34:41.960 --> 01:34:45.240 and therefore my situation is changing. Does that make sense? 1606 01:34:45.460 --> 01:34:49.060 So I'm growing at the same pace as these things 1607 01:34:49.060 --> 01:34:52.980 and I think that every story that I tell or every time that I write 1608 01:34:52.980 --> 01:34:55.260 I'm adding to who I am. 1609 01:34:55.820 --> 01:34:56.220 Absolutely. 1610 01:34:56.400 --> 01:34:59.740 Yeah, there's that stuff that Carl and I were talking about as well, 1611 01:34:59.840 --> 01:35:04.800 the layers of story that you can keep adding to who you are 1612 01:35:05.300 --> 01:35:07.500 by learning about the place that you're in, 1613 01:35:07.580 --> 01:35:10.160 by learning about the ancestors that came before you, 1614 01:35:10.200 --> 01:35:11.880 about the footsteps that came before you. 1615 01:35:11.940 --> 01:35:13.380 It's very much about that. 1616 01:35:16.860 --> 01:35:22.060 I'm going to first read a poem called Intervention, Allies. 1617 01:35:22.600 --> 01:35:24.460 And everyone knows about the interventions 1618 01:35:24.460 --> 01:35:26.380 that have been happening for nearly 20 years. 1619 01:35:26.400 --> 01:35:26.800 10 years. 1620 01:35:27.220 --> 01:35:32.900 So this was the era where I had been on such a big journey 1621 01:35:32.900 --> 01:35:37.820 and I finally was living in a community in the desert, 1622 01:35:38.900 --> 01:35:39.940 working at the art centre, 1623 01:35:40.820 --> 01:35:42.780 surrounded totally by my family. 1624 01:35:43.040 --> 01:35:44.760 And then the intervention arrived. 1625 01:35:47.320 --> 01:35:48.880 When John Howard said, 1626 01:35:49.060 --> 01:35:50.280 let's have an intervention, 1627 01:35:51.340 --> 01:35:53.000 the women shouted, 1628 01:35:53.200 --> 01:35:56.220 yes, we're sick of the drinking, 1629 01:35:56.400 --> 01:35:58.700 the weekend footy trips away, 1630 01:35:58.980 --> 01:36:02.940 happy hours in hotels without bringing their pay home for us, 1631 01:36:03.020 --> 01:36:06.320 and sometimes losing their jobs when they don't know when to stop. 1632 01:36:06.980 --> 01:36:08.880 We're sick of the sarcasm, 1633 01:36:09.040 --> 01:36:11.460 the fights, the occasional black eye, 1634 01:36:11.660 --> 01:36:14.740 their priority for their mates over us and the children. 1635 01:36:15.380 --> 01:36:19.400 We're sick of their drunken breath exploding in unjustified abuse, 1636 01:36:19.800 --> 01:36:23.160 the words that can't be retrieved when he crawls back into bed. 1637 01:36:23.400 --> 01:36:24.900 Yes, the women shouted, 1638 01:36:25.080 --> 01:36:26.380 yes, we're sick of the drinking, 1639 01:36:26.380 --> 01:36:26.760 the intervention. 1640 01:36:28.580 --> 01:36:32.020 The Aboriginal women weren't so sure. 1641 01:36:32.780 --> 01:36:38.740 Now, I'd lived in a white world and now I was embraced in my family world. 1642 01:36:41.120 --> 01:36:50.220 This poem describes what I knew and I wasn't seeing it in the community that I was living in. 1643 01:36:51.800 --> 01:36:55.000 Then I became a poet for my people. 1644 01:36:56.460 --> 01:37:03.740 And it allowed me to carry myself finally with the dignity that I should have been allowed to be born with. 1645 01:37:03.840 --> 01:37:08.720 My mother had to give me up to have an education in this institution. 1646 01:37:10.580 --> 01:37:15.440 Just the other day on Thursday in Perth, 1647 01:37:15.560 --> 01:37:16.980 I'd just come back from Perth, 1648 01:37:17.080 --> 01:37:22.480 and I walked into the bank pretty much wearing the same clothes with my sunglasses on. 1649 01:37:22.760 --> 01:37:23.900 And I walked in. 1650 01:37:24.020 --> 01:37:25.720 Someone had just given me a hard time. 1651 01:37:25.720 --> 01:37:27.620 I was travelling with a very grumpy passenger. 1652 01:37:27.960 --> 01:37:29.080 But I walked in. 1653 01:37:29.100 --> 01:37:31.060 It's the way that I carry myself now. 1654 01:37:31.120 --> 01:37:33.320 I'm proud of Ali Cobby-Eckermann. 1655 01:37:33.500 --> 01:37:36.400 I'm not a second-class citizen in Australia anymore. 1656 01:37:36.680 --> 01:37:39.340 My family and my poetry have given me this. 1657 01:37:39.580 --> 01:37:42.240 And I walked in and this lady said, 1658 01:37:42.460 --> 01:37:43.120 Chrissie! 1659 01:37:44.180 --> 01:37:46.240 It's so lovely to see you! 1660 01:37:46.780 --> 01:37:48.660 She said, I love your concerts. 1661 01:37:48.780 --> 01:37:50.360 They're the best concerts ever! 1662 01:37:52.120 --> 01:37:54.420 And I said, thank you very much. 1663 01:37:55.720 --> 01:37:57.700 And later on when I was up at the Telus, 1664 01:37:58.320 --> 01:37:59.520 she'd come up and she'd say, 1665 01:37:59.620 --> 01:38:01.460 oh Chrissie, they really were the best concerts. 1666 01:38:01.520 --> 01:38:02.820 I used to take my top off. 1667 01:38:03.080 --> 01:38:06.180 I was having a really good conversation with her 1668 01:38:07.000 --> 01:38:10.280 until security said she had to move along and then she had to leave the building. 1669 01:38:10.520 --> 01:38:14.540 But it's about poetry for me, 1670 01:38:15.600 --> 01:38:18.240 allowing me to stand in my truth 1671 01:38:19.000 --> 01:38:21.880 in a way that, I don't know, 1672 01:38:22.020 --> 01:38:23.860 people that don't need... 1673 01:38:23.860 --> 01:38:24.900 I'm not... 1674 01:38:24.900 --> 01:38:26.440 I've lost my point of view. 1675 01:38:28.260 --> 01:38:30.500 That I can walk in as a rock star 1676 01:38:30.500 --> 01:38:33.360 instead of a stolen generation of her. 1677 01:38:39.820 --> 01:38:41.260 But what it does, 1678 01:38:41.520 --> 01:38:44.200 and we all felt it when you were reading, 1679 01:38:44.300 --> 01:38:47.020 not just that, but the other works that you were reading, 1680 01:38:47.120 --> 01:38:49.560 because of the honesty with which you write, 1681 01:38:49.740 --> 01:38:51.860 the honesty with which you tell your story, 1682 01:38:51.960 --> 01:38:53.620 and the honesty with which, 1683 01:38:53.680 --> 01:38:54.880 and the emotion with which you do it, 1684 01:38:54.900 --> 01:38:55.400 and the way you deliver it, 1685 01:38:55.420 --> 01:38:58.280 it makes a connection to us. 1686 01:38:58.500 --> 01:39:04.740 And it helps us understand this place, I think. 1687 01:39:07.040 --> 01:39:08.440 Anybody that's listening. 1688 01:39:09.240 --> 01:39:12.720 But Carl would know when you're teaching, 1689 01:39:13.040 --> 01:39:14.180 talking your truth. 1690 01:39:16.140 --> 01:39:18.580 I'm not joking that my mother came here. 1691 01:39:18.920 --> 01:39:19.780 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1692 01:39:20.560 --> 01:39:23.420 This was the reason we were separated. 1693 01:39:23.420 --> 01:39:24.180 The university. 1694 01:39:25.280 --> 01:39:26.840 I love it when... 1695 01:39:27.720 --> 01:39:30.340 And I have a lot of guidance from my family. 1696 01:39:31.300 --> 01:39:34.960 They guide my poetry journey all the way. 1697 01:39:35.260 --> 01:39:39.280 But I love it when I can feel the spirits come 1698 01:39:39.280 --> 01:39:40.920 and they're sitting there. 1699 01:39:41.160 --> 01:39:43.800 And I'm only a little girl in culture, 1700 01:39:44.100 --> 01:39:47.740 but they're sitting there, like, you know, encouraging. 1701 01:39:48.720 --> 01:39:51.680 Because we are just one page in a big book. 1702 01:39:52.260 --> 01:39:54.140 I think you made reference to it. 1703 01:39:55.900 --> 01:39:59.240 I want, when my children and grandchildren turn over the page, 1704 01:39:59.340 --> 01:40:02.660 that it's a good page and not a rubbish page. 1705 01:40:03.780 --> 01:40:06.120 That's when the ancestors come and sit in the room. 1706 01:40:07.200 --> 01:40:08.340 Absolutely. Absolutely. 1707 01:40:08.640 --> 01:40:09.100 Just on... 1708 01:40:09.100 --> 01:40:09.520 Yeah. 1709 01:40:10.700 --> 01:40:11.460 Straight answers. 1710 01:40:11.720 --> 01:40:12.040 Carl. 1711 01:40:12.160 --> 01:40:13.000 Just on that... 1712 01:40:13.940 --> 01:40:15.080 Yeah, that's right. 1713 01:40:15.220 --> 01:40:15.700 Straight out. 1714 01:40:15.780 --> 01:40:16.660 There's no other way, you know. 1715 01:40:17.360 --> 01:40:20.440 And that's the teaching that I talk to young followers about at the time 1716 01:40:20.440 --> 01:40:21.660 when I talk about this. 1717 01:40:21.660 --> 01:40:23.880 I'm not talking sideways to your followers 1718 01:40:23.880 --> 01:40:25.620 because I don't know your followers yet. 1719 01:40:27.260 --> 01:40:28.800 But that's our thing, you know. 1720 01:40:28.880 --> 01:40:31.020 We talk about that in the drawing and the stories 1721 01:40:31.520 --> 01:40:33.120 and the songs and everything else, 1722 01:40:33.180 --> 01:40:36.240 who we are that makes everything move through us, 1723 01:40:36.320 --> 01:40:37.480 a part of us. 1724 01:40:37.680 --> 01:40:39.460 And we are the land. 1725 01:40:40.080 --> 01:40:42.280 We are the stars. 1726 01:40:42.520 --> 01:40:43.700 We are the sea. 1727 01:40:44.320 --> 01:40:45.260 We are it. 1728 01:40:45.620 --> 01:40:48.100 We have never, ever been taught anything different. 1729 01:40:50.080 --> 01:40:51.640 But the pain has been... 1730 01:40:53.400 --> 01:40:54.960 the cut, yeah? 1731 01:40:55.720 --> 01:40:56.840 And that's when we sit down 1732 01:40:56.840 --> 01:40:57.820 and I sit down with the young followers 1733 01:40:57.820 --> 01:41:00.660 because there's still beach down here now. 1734 01:41:00.940 --> 01:41:02.060 There's still beach and all, 1735 01:41:02.140 --> 01:41:04.520 but I don't know for how long. 1736 01:41:05.780 --> 01:41:07.760 But that's what we do when we sit in the sand there. 1737 01:41:08.520 --> 01:41:09.940 And we draw with it like that. 1738 01:41:10.220 --> 01:41:12.440 And then we turn the page. 1739 01:41:13.620 --> 01:41:14.900 And then we tell another story 1740 01:41:14.900 --> 01:41:15.940 and then we turn the page. 1741 01:41:19.880 --> 01:41:21.620 And that's all them pages before us. 1742 01:41:21.620 --> 01:41:23.420 And that's all them pages to come. 1743 01:41:24.040 --> 01:41:25.280 Because that's how we think. 1744 01:41:25.960 --> 01:41:28.480 From the ancestors, seven generations before us, 1745 01:41:28.500 --> 01:41:31.280 to thinking about what's this place here now, 1746 01:41:31.300 --> 01:41:33.320 seven generations in front for the future. 1747 01:41:36.000 --> 01:41:36.520 Many? 1748 01:41:37.260 --> 01:41:37.780 Four? 1749 01:41:38.600 --> 01:41:42.620 So as writers and artists and storytellers... 1750 01:41:45.080 --> 01:41:47.420 ..as writers and artists and storytellers, 1751 01:41:47.440 --> 01:41:50.780 one of the things that I think you touched on, Nick, 1752 01:41:50.780 --> 01:41:53.840 was the question of what next? 1753 01:41:53.940 --> 01:41:55.780 How do we ensure... 1754 01:41:56.740 --> 01:41:58.900 And I think conversations like this are part of that 1755 01:41:58.900 --> 01:42:01.960 and sharing the poems and the stuff that Carl talks about 1756 01:42:01.960 --> 01:42:02.540 is part of that. 1757 01:42:02.700 --> 01:42:05.220 But how do we, when we look at the world 1758 01:42:05.220 --> 01:42:08.780 that is that chaotic, ghastly mess at times, 1759 01:42:09.520 --> 01:42:13.060 you know, we can't proceed on the assumption 1760 01:42:13.060 --> 01:42:14.100 that all is lost. 1761 01:42:14.400 --> 01:42:14.800 No. 1762 01:42:15.020 --> 01:42:17.280 You know, because if we do, then all is lost. 1763 01:42:17.540 --> 01:42:17.800 Mm-hm. 1764 01:42:17.820 --> 01:42:20.480 You know, and one of the reasons that Carl and I 1765 01:42:20.480 --> 01:42:20.760 very much... 1766 01:42:20.780 --> 01:42:21.980 very much work with young kids 1767 01:42:21.980 --> 01:42:24.720 is because, as we talked about at the beginning, 1768 01:42:25.280 --> 01:42:28.760 they are receptive to ideas and thoughts and stuff. 1769 01:42:29.960 --> 01:42:31.680 So what's our responsibility? 1770 01:42:33.020 --> 01:42:34.780 Well, responsibility is the right word, 1771 01:42:34.840 --> 01:42:38.680 because as I tried to think my way, 1772 01:42:38.800 --> 01:42:40.480 not only through climate change, 1773 01:42:40.560 --> 01:42:42.420 but also how to write my book, 1774 01:42:43.700 --> 01:42:46.580 I sort of went between pessimism and optimism. 1775 01:42:46.740 --> 01:42:49.100 Mostly pessimism, I have to say, the more I found out. 1776 01:42:50.580 --> 01:42:52.000 But I thought, that's no good. 1777 01:42:52.180 --> 01:42:52.840 I can't stay there. 1778 01:42:53.020 --> 01:42:54.740 You know, the poet W.H. Auden said, 1779 01:42:54.800 --> 01:42:55.840 poetry makes nothing happen. 1780 01:42:56.520 --> 01:42:58.800 And I thought, that's not right. 1781 01:42:58.900 --> 01:42:59.520 That's not true. 1782 01:43:00.360 --> 01:43:02.140 The poetry has to make something happen. 1783 01:43:02.860 --> 01:43:05.780 But my friend Ray Gator, who's sitting in the audience here, 1784 01:43:05.820 --> 01:43:07.740 said it's not about pessimism and it's not about optimism. 1785 01:43:07.880 --> 01:43:09.380 It's about responsibility, 1786 01:43:10.060 --> 01:43:12.120 taking responsibility for the world that we live in. 1787 01:43:12.200 --> 01:43:14.100 And we can do that at a personal level, 1788 01:43:14.180 --> 01:43:16.280 and then we have to fight for it at a political level, 1789 01:43:16.380 --> 01:43:19.080 because those are the two areas that we have to work on. 1790 01:43:20.580 --> 01:43:22.040 But for myself, 1791 01:43:23.840 --> 01:43:25.860 I began to think about the future more than anything, 1792 01:43:25.960 --> 01:43:28.160 about how things change and about the future. 1793 01:43:28.300 --> 01:43:30.320 Can I just read this poem in the voice of the future? 1794 01:43:30.400 --> 01:43:30.920 It won't take long. 1795 01:43:33.460 --> 01:43:34.640 If I can find it again. 1796 01:43:34.760 --> 01:43:35.440 Where did I put it? 1797 01:43:36.020 --> 01:43:37.080 Where did I put the future? 1798 01:43:40.100 --> 01:43:40.700 Before you. 1799 01:43:40.880 --> 01:43:43.080 Okay, this is in the voice of the future. 1800 01:43:43.840 --> 01:43:44.500 Now I'm speaking. 1801 01:43:46.060 --> 01:43:47.220 Palm voice, sorry. 1802 01:43:47.680 --> 01:43:49.060 The future can have any voice. 1803 01:43:49.080 --> 01:43:50.120 The future can have any voice that you hear in your head, 1804 01:43:50.260 --> 01:43:51.360 preferably not mine. 1805 01:43:54.180 --> 01:43:55.300 Dear mortals, 1806 01:43:55.400 --> 01:43:58.040 I know you are busy with your colorful lives. 1807 01:43:58.420 --> 01:44:02.040 You grow quickly bored and you detest moralizing. 1808 01:44:02.520 --> 01:44:05.320 I have no wish to waste the little time that remains 1809 01:44:05.320 --> 01:44:07.800 on arguments and heated debates. 1810 01:44:08.280 --> 01:44:10.040 I wish I could entertain you 1811 01:44:10.040 --> 01:44:13.380 with some magnificent propositions and hilarious jokes. 1812 01:44:13.680 --> 01:44:16.000 But the best I can do is this. 1813 01:44:16.120 --> 01:44:17.600 I haven't happened yet, 1814 01:44:17.600 --> 01:44:18.960 but I will. 1815 01:44:19.780 --> 01:44:20.980 I am the future. 1816 01:44:21.320 --> 01:44:22.700 But before I appear, 1817 01:44:23.600 --> 01:44:25.720 close your eyes, please, 1818 01:44:26.320 --> 01:44:27.660 and listen carefully. 1819 01:44:28.960 --> 01:44:32.880 I can't pretend it's going to be business as usual. 1820 01:44:33.120 --> 01:44:34.460 Things are going to change. 1821 01:44:35.420 --> 01:44:37.200 Please, don't open your eyes. 1822 01:44:37.260 --> 01:44:38.000 Not yet. 1823 01:44:38.560 --> 01:44:40.580 I'm not trying to frighten you. 1824 01:44:41.240 --> 01:44:43.300 All I ask is that you think of me 1825 01:44:43.300 --> 01:44:45.280 not as a wish or a nightmare, 1826 01:44:45.480 --> 01:44:46.780 but as a story. 1827 01:44:46.780 --> 01:44:48.300 You have to tell yourselves. 1828 01:44:49.280 --> 01:44:50.600 Not with an ending 1829 01:44:50.600 --> 01:44:53.120 in which everybody lives happily ever after, 1830 01:44:53.200 --> 01:44:54.840 or a B-movie apocalypse, 1831 01:44:55.340 --> 01:44:57.980 but maybe starting with the line 1832 01:44:57.980 --> 01:44:59.140 to be continued 1833 01:44:59.140 --> 01:45:01.180 and see what happens next. 1834 01:45:02.780 --> 01:45:03.240 Remember this. 1835 01:45:03.360 --> 01:45:05.500 I am not written in stone, 1836 01:45:05.640 --> 01:45:07.340 but in time. 1837 01:45:08.780 --> 01:45:11.080 So please, don't shrug and say, 1838 01:45:11.220 --> 01:45:12.200 what can we do? 1839 01:45:12.320 --> 01:45:15.100 It's too late, etc., etc. 1840 01:45:16.780 --> 01:45:19.680 Already I hear the sound of empty seats clapping 1841 01:45:19.680 --> 01:45:21.340 as you head for the exits. 1842 01:45:22.240 --> 01:45:24.940 I feel like the comedian who died. 1843 01:45:26.620 --> 01:45:29.760 Dear mortals, you are such strange creatures, 1844 01:45:29.840 --> 01:45:32.460 with your greed and your kindness 1845 01:45:32.460 --> 01:45:35.120 and your hearts like broken toys. 1846 01:45:36.440 --> 01:45:39.400 You carry fear with you everywhere, 1847 01:45:39.620 --> 01:45:42.940 like a tiny god in its box of shadows. 1848 01:45:43.460 --> 01:45:45.940 You love shopping and music, 1849 01:45:45.940 --> 01:45:48.560 good food, festivals. 1850 01:45:49.540 --> 01:45:50.660 You lie to yourselves 1851 01:45:50.660 --> 01:45:52.220 because you're afraid of the dark. 1852 01:45:53.060 --> 01:45:54.400 But the truth is this. 1853 01:45:54.880 --> 01:45:56.560 You are in my hands, 1854 01:45:56.780 --> 01:45:58.920 and I am in yours. 1855 01:45:59.760 --> 01:46:00.880 We're in this together, 1856 01:46:01.120 --> 01:46:03.920 face to face and eye to eye. 1857 01:46:04.320 --> 01:46:06.500 We are made for each other. 1858 01:46:07.840 --> 01:46:10.340 Now, those of you who are still here, 1859 01:46:10.440 --> 01:46:12.080 open your eyes 1860 01:46:12.080 --> 01:46:14.480 and tell me what you see. 1861 01:46:17.680 --> 01:46:18.340 . 1862 01:46:18.340 --> 01:46:18.920 . 1863 01:46:27.480 --> 01:46:28.300 What do I see? 1864 01:46:28.520 --> 01:46:31.900 I see a future of possibility. 1865 01:46:32.080 --> 01:46:37.300 I see a future that is as yet unwritten. 1866 01:46:38.080 --> 01:46:42.320 I see a future that we as writers and poets 1867 01:46:42.320 --> 01:46:43.280 and we as a community, 1868 01:46:43.280 --> 01:46:44.580 that we as a festival, 1869 01:46:46.800 --> 01:46:51.560 can contribute to making a better future 1870 01:46:51.560 --> 01:46:53.860 than it might otherwise be if we weren't here. 1871 01:46:55.040 --> 01:46:57.920 So, I think that's... 1872 01:47:00.060 --> 01:47:01.720 Yeah, if you guys want to... 1873 01:47:02.220 --> 01:47:03.120 Five minutes? Yeah. 1874 01:47:03.180 --> 01:47:04.740 So, what do you see? 1875 01:47:05.720 --> 01:47:07.180 What do I see? Yeah. 1876 01:47:07.580 --> 01:47:08.060 . 1877 01:47:08.520 --> 01:47:08.880 . 1878 01:47:10.720 --> 01:47:12.320 I think that when we talked about, 1879 01:47:13.140 --> 01:47:15.660 you know, the world being messed up or whatever else, 1880 01:47:16.160 --> 01:47:17.860 I think that it's important that we realize 1881 01:47:17.860 --> 01:47:19.640 we don't really have any other kind of world 1882 01:47:19.640 --> 01:47:20.420 to compare it to. 1883 01:47:20.820 --> 01:47:21.180 And... 1884 01:47:21.180 --> 01:47:21.920 I can't just... 1885 01:47:22.360 --> 01:47:22.720 Sorry? 1886 01:47:22.720 --> 01:47:24.280 I can't just go somewhere else. 1887 01:47:24.280 --> 01:47:24.560 Can't we? 1888 01:47:24.900 --> 01:47:26.940 Exactly. And also like we have... 1889 01:47:28.520 --> 01:47:29.240 There's always... 1890 01:47:29.240 --> 01:47:31.540 I mean, yes, the issues that we faced now 1891 01:47:31.540 --> 01:47:33.540 are so significant and we need to work out how to deal with them. 1892 01:47:33.600 --> 01:47:34.940 But there's always been some kind of issues. 1893 01:47:35.040 --> 01:47:36.880 And I'm not sure that the world is... 1894 01:47:37.580 --> 01:47:38.540 necessarily completely 1895 01:47:39.620 --> 01:47:40.920 worse than it ever was. 1896 01:47:41.700 --> 01:47:43.580 Yeah, so I definitely think 1897 01:47:43.580 --> 01:47:45.320 that there's hope in the same way that there was hope 1898 01:47:45.320 --> 01:47:47.500 in every generation. There were mistakes made in every 1899 01:47:47.500 --> 01:47:49.460 generation and there are mistakes 1900 01:47:49.460 --> 01:47:51.300 being made now and we can 1901 01:47:51.300 --> 01:47:52.640 work on them and I think 1902 01:47:53.460 --> 01:47:55.480 yeah, I'm definitely very hopeful and 1903 01:47:55.480 --> 01:47:56.200 I 1904 01:47:57.400 --> 01:47:59.200 yeah, I think that's all I could say. 1905 01:48:01.100 --> 01:48:01.820 I see 1906 01:48:01.820 --> 01:48:02.300 protest. 1907 01:48:03.920 --> 01:48:04.800 I can't 1908 01:48:05.540 --> 01:48:06.020 see 1909 01:48:08.840 --> 01:48:09.480 Australia 1910 01:48:10.460 --> 01:48:11.100 working 1911 01:48:12.260 --> 01:48:14.320 to be the friends of 1912 01:48:14.320 --> 01:48:16.480 Aboriginal people and 1913 01:48:17.360 --> 01:48:18.000 to 1914 01:48:18.740 --> 01:48:20.600 allow us to move a little bit 1915 01:48:20.600 --> 01:48:22.220 closer to where we belong 1916 01:48:22.220 --> 01:48:24.520 in our cultural and spiritual 1917 01:48:24.520 --> 01:48:26.780 landscape. It's not commerce 1918 01:48:26.780 --> 01:48:28.160 that's going to give you an identity. 1919 01:48:28.460 --> 01:48:30.740 It's culture and I wish 1920 01:48:30.740 --> 01:48:32.080 Australia would learn 1921 01:48:32.080 --> 01:48:34.320 that we'll bring much dignity 1922 01:48:34.980 --> 01:48:35.800 to this 1923 01:48:35.800 --> 01:48:36.000 country. 1924 01:48:36.020 --> 01:48:38.580 I have an idea. 1925 01:48:39.000 --> 01:48:40.680 It's a festival of ideas 1926 01:48:40.680 --> 01:48:42.460 that if and 1927 01:48:42.460 --> 01:48:45.200 it's just an idea for people to take away. 1928 01:48:45.500 --> 01:48:46.740 But if people here 1929 01:48:46.740 --> 01:48:48.880 are working in the public service 1930 01:48:48.880 --> 01:48:50.700 and not protesting 1931 01:48:50.700 --> 01:48:52.660 against the arts cuts 1932 01:48:53.360 --> 01:48:55.100 from inside the walls 1933 01:48:55.100 --> 01:48:56.300 of the public service 1934 01:48:57.540 --> 01:48:58.380 you're doing 1935 01:48:58.380 --> 01:49:00.720 then you shouldn't be in the room 1936 01:49:00.720 --> 01:49:03.100 because you can't work in a system 1937 01:49:03.100 --> 01:49:05.440 that allows arts cuts 1938 01:49:05.440 --> 01:49:07.940 and then come and enjoy the arts. 1939 01:49:08.520 --> 01:49:10.420 And sometimes I feel like 1940 01:49:11.040 --> 01:49:13.980 some of you should be ashamed of living 1941 01:49:13.980 --> 01:49:16.540 in our country without being our friend. 1942 01:49:17.180 --> 01:49:17.660 Yep. 1943 01:49:19.060 --> 01:49:19.540 . 1944 01:49:23.760 --> 01:49:25.040 Yeah, what do you say? 1945 01:49:25.180 --> 01:49:28.080 Yeah, just very briefly I think I totally agree. 1946 01:49:28.180 --> 01:49:30.120 And I think what I really love to hear is that, 1947 01:49:30.120 --> 01:49:31.860 you know, that we speak about our truths. 1948 01:49:32.000 --> 01:49:32.960 And I think we have truths. 1949 01:49:33.140 --> 01:49:34.300 And that's very important. 1950 01:49:34.400 --> 01:49:34.760 I think 1951 01:49:34.760 --> 01:49:37.840 in terms of what the artists or poets can do. 1952 01:49:37.940 --> 01:49:42.040 I mean, I think that, you know, 1953 01:49:42.080 --> 01:49:43.800 there's something that only art can do. 1954 01:49:44.820 --> 01:49:45.760 Responsibility is general. 1955 01:49:45.860 --> 01:49:46.740 We should all be responsible. 1956 01:49:47.040 --> 01:49:47.560 I totally agree. 1957 01:49:47.700 --> 01:49:48.920 But I think there's something art can do. 1958 01:49:49.040 --> 01:49:50.420 One of the things listening to 1959 01:49:50.420 --> 01:49:52.840 and taking part in this event 1960 01:49:52.840 --> 01:49:54.700 and things similar is that you hear 1961 01:49:54.700 --> 01:49:58.460 the kind of specific individual personal experience 1962 01:49:58.460 --> 01:50:00.880 of people and their groups and their identities 1963 01:50:01.460 --> 01:50:03.440 that are made understandable by everybody. 1964 01:50:03.780 --> 01:50:04.740 And I think that's something that I think 1965 01:50:04.740 --> 01:50:06.240 that's a really important thing as well. 1966 01:50:06.360 --> 01:50:08.260 I think that's one thing that art can do is take 1967 01:50:08.260 --> 01:50:11.300 that particularity of experience into universality. 1968 01:50:11.480 --> 01:50:14.700 And I think that could contribute towards maybe a creation 1969 01:50:14.700 --> 01:50:17.640 of a general sort of commonness that could bring us together. 1970 01:50:17.880 --> 01:50:19.800 Because I don't think we're going to resolve any 1971 01:50:19.800 --> 01:50:21.700 of these individual problems individually. 1972 01:50:22.200 --> 01:50:25.140 It will have to be a global universal solution 1973 01:50:25.140 --> 01:50:25.980 to all of them. 1974 01:50:26.760 --> 01:50:27.720 That's this, yeah. 1975 01:50:27.880 --> 01:50:29.540 And I think art can help towards that. 1976 01:50:30.100 --> 01:50:30.540 Absolutely. 1977 01:50:30.800 --> 01:50:34.200 And last off, to finish off the night, Carl. 1978 01:50:34.360 --> 01:50:34.720 . 1979 01:50:34.720 --> 01:50:35.160 Over to you. 1980 01:50:35.780 --> 01:50:36.180 . 1981 01:50:38.320 --> 01:50:40.480 No. Yeah. 1982 01:50:40.640 --> 01:50:42.540 Just listening to all the things, hey, you know. 1983 01:50:45.180 --> 01:50:50.520 And it is that thing because we're all human race, aren't we? 1984 01:50:52.120 --> 01:50:53.900 Comes back to that common sense thing. 1985 01:50:54.000 --> 01:50:57.660 But and how we walk on place, you know. 1986 01:50:59.700 --> 01:51:00.860 And the spirit of place. 1987 01:51:00.920 --> 01:51:02.200 Because the spirit of place is everywhere. 1988 01:51:03.540 --> 01:51:03.940 And. 1989 01:51:04.300 --> 01:51:04.700 . 1990 01:51:04.700 --> 01:51:08.220 And I think this thing that everybody that's here. 1991 01:51:08.400 --> 01:51:10.560 And this is the first time I've ever been up here 1992 01:51:10.560 --> 01:51:12.860 and sat down here or been invited to here. 1993 01:51:15.540 --> 01:51:18.780 Is that there needs to be more of this that happens. 1994 01:51:21.580 --> 01:51:22.980 And where's the real fire? 1995 01:51:25.300 --> 01:51:27.860 Where's the fire that you can come and contribute to. 1996 01:51:29.280 --> 01:51:30.420 Or, you know, everybody. 1997 01:51:31.440 --> 01:51:34.080 To sit around that and feel that and understand that. 1998 01:51:34.080 --> 01:51:43.120 and take on those things about who we are and our ideas that everybody has 1999 01:51:43.120 --> 01:51:52.500 because everybody has them. So I don't know the ideas but I know how to make the fire. 2000 01:52:16.820 --> 01:52:16.860 Welcome 2001 01:52:53.300 --> 01:52:54.420 Thank you all. 2002 01:52:54.720 --> 01:52:55.620 Thank you all. 2003 01:52:55.680 --> 01:52:56.180 Thank you all. 2004 01:52:56.180 --> 01:52:57.180 Say their Rachel. 2005 01:52:59.120 --> 01:53:00.100 Special. 2006 01:53:02.080 --> 01:53:02.860 Rachel Johnson. 2007 01:53:04.560 --> 01:53:06.920 Hero of the cello. 2008 01:53:08.080 --> 01:53:08.960 Ali Kobe-Eckerman. 2009 01:53:11.860 --> 01:53:13.080 Carl Winder Telfa. 2010 01:53:14.780 --> 01:53:16.280 Manal Yunus. 2011 01:53:18.540 --> 01:53:19.900 Michael Mills. 2012 01:53:21.460 --> 01:53:22.100 Nick Drake. 2013 01:53:22.960 --> 01:53:24.520 Ali Alizadeh. 2014 01:53:26.180 --> 01:53:28.700 And our other two poets performing in the corner. 2015 01:53:30.200 --> 01:53:31.320 Amber and Chelsea. 2016 01:53:34.000 --> 01:53:36.080 Thank you everybody for being involved. 2017 01:53:36.100 --> 01:53:37.200 Thank you for coming along. 2018 01:53:37.520 --> 01:53:38.040 Thank you.