Callaloo & Wattleseed
'zinc house pon mountain top’ © Acquille Dunkley, 2024
A Symposium on Caribbean Culture in Australia
Western Sydney University
Parramatta City Campus
May 3, 2024
Athésia, Sienna Brown, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Councillor (Waskam) Emelda Davis, Nancy Denis, Anne Hickling-Hudson, Cath Moore, Karo Moret, Zahra Newman, Amma Owusu, Caryn Rae Adams, Errol H Renaud, Consuelo Martinez Reyes, JJ Roberts
Building on pioneering efforts to recover the long history of Caribbean people in Australia and to understand movements of people between the regions, Callaloo & Wattleseed focuses for the first time squarely on the cultural contributions of Caribbean Australians. Caribbean artists from various fields will consider through the prism of their practice questions like: do Caribbean artists work within a ‘diaspora’ or ‘community’ in Australia? Or do their experiences tend to be more isolated, on the one hand, or placed into broader groups, such as the global African or South Asian diasporas, on the other? How have Caribbean artists in Australia navigated the experience of being, in many cases, part of minoritized racial groups? What have been the connections and relations between Caribbean and First Nations people? How do the experiences of Caribbean artists compare with those who have emigrated to other parts of the world? This unique one-day symposium will go a long way in providing some the answers. Come join us! Register before 28 April for the full day's program, including a lunch of traditional Jamaican food provided by Jamaican Delight
Keynote, 9am-10:30am: Maxine Beneba Clarke 'Writing Ourselves Home'.
In ‘Writing Ourselves Home,’ Clarke will discuss what it means to be an artist, writer, educator and creator of Afro-Caribbean heritage, in a country where the history of the African continent, and of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, remains largely untaught.
Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent, and the author of over fifteen published books for children and adults, including the critically acclaimed memoir The Hate Race, which she has recently adapted for theatre in an acclaimed run at the Malthouse, the ABIA and Indie award-winning short fiction Foreign Soil, the poetry collection Carrying The World, which won the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry and, most recently, It's the Sound of the Thing: 100 new poems for young people. She is the inaugural Peter Steele Poet in Residence at The University of Melbourne.
 | The symposium will take place in the heart of the Parramatta CBD at Western Sydney University's Parramatta City campus, in conference rooms 1 & 2 on Level 9 of the Peter Shergold Building, 169 Macquarie Street, Parramatta. Enter from Parramatta Square (if arriving by train) or Macquarie St. It is a 3 to 5 minute walk from Parramatta railway station. When you arrive at the building, take the lift to Level 9 and follow signs to 'Callaloo and Wattleseed Symposium'. There is no on-campus parking but there are nearby secure, paid carparks available for a daily or hourly rate at 75 George St.(Secure Parking), 80 George St (Wilson Parking), or 1 Horwood Place. |
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Callaloo & Wattleseed has been generously funded by the Writing and Society Research Centre and the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University, and the Australian Research Council. We are grateful to Suzanne Gapps for her assistance, to Kate Fagan, Director of the Writing and Society Research Centre, for her support and encouragement, to Acquille Dunkley for permission to use his art, to Jamaican Delight for catering, to Jamaican Products for beverages, and to our all our wonderful speakers and participants. |
