Saans Lo (take breath) Supper Club

The supper club brings together Western Sydney University’s academics and students, and invited guest speakers alongside Western Sydney Creative’s exhibiting artists for a lively night of discussion centred on the key themes and issue presented in the current exhibition and aligned to research within the school, whilst enjoying a casual meal together.

The first Supper Club will be held on the evening of 10 April at the Margaret Whitlam Galleries, Building EZ, Parramatta South campus, and aligns to the solo exhibition by Shivanjani Lal, Saans Lo (take breath).

The event will be catered by Fijian Indian Caterers Jhatpat Catering. The supper club is a collaborative project developed by Western Sydney Creative and the School of Humanities and Communication Arts.

Keep an eye on our website and social media for updates. Event open to all @westernsydneyunicreative https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/wscreative

Arrive 5pm: Networking drinks and viewing of exhibition Saans Lo.

5:45pm: presentations begin

Confirmed speakers:

Shivanjani Lal
Shivanjani Lal is a Fijian-Australian artist and curator whose work uses personal grief to account for ancestral loss.  She uses story-telling, objects and video to account for lost stories of Girmitiya (Indenture) from the Indian and Pacific oceans.

She was the 2019 Create New South Wales Visual Arts Emerging Fellow, and the 2020 Georges Mora Fellow. In 2021 she graduated with distinction from Goldsmiths, University of London with a Masters in Artists Film and Moving Image. In 2023 she received the QAGOMA Vida Lahey Scholarship. Lal’s work has been exhibited across Australia, and internationally most recently in the Sharjah Biennial 16: to carry. Lal currently lives and works in Western Sydney.

Suzanne Claridge

Suzanne Claridge is a writer and artist based on Gadigal land (Sydney, Australia). She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, Art & Design. Her interdisciplinary practice-based research focuses on Girmitiya (indentured Indian labour) history, feminist postcolonial studies, archival poetics and experimental writing practices.

Manisha Anjali
Manisha Anjali is the author of Naag Mountain (Giramondo, 2024). Naag Mountain has been shortlisted for the Judith Calanthe Award for Poetry, highly commended at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and longlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize. Manisha was a recipient of BLINDSIDE’s Regional Arts & Research Residency at Mooramong, a Writer-in-Residence at Incendium Radical Library and a Hot Desk Fellow at The Wheeler Centre. She is the founder of Neptune, a research and documentation platform for dreams, visions and hallucinations.  Manisha is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Asha Chand

Dr Asha Chand is Associate Dean International, South Asia, and Senior Lecturer/Convener in Journalism at Western Sydney University. With 40 years of experience in academia, journalism, and newsroom management, she excels in high-level networking across industries. In 2023, she received the Nav Rattan award in Delhi, recognizing her among millions of NRIs. She holds a PhD in Media, Culture, Migration, and Marriage and is a Senior Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Academy. Honoured with the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samman (2018) at the House of Commons in London and Hind Rattan (2019), in Delhi, she also won national awards for teaching excellence in Australia.

More speakers to be announced

RSVP- https://events.humanitix.com/saans-lo-take-breath-supper-club