Griffith Graduate Centre (S07) room 1.23, South Bank Campus
5:30pm - 7:30pm
PANEL: Dr Leah BARCLAY, Dr Renata BUZIAK & Tristan SCHULTZ
Dr Leah Barclay
Dr. Leah Barclay creates complex sonic environments that draw attention to changing climates and fragile ecosystems. These works are realised through immersive live performances, interactive installations and virtual reality experiences drawing on environmental field recordings, live streaming audio and spatial sound diffusion. Her work has been commissioned, performed and exhibited to wide acclaim internationally by organisations including the Smithsonian Museum, UNESCO, Ear to the Earth, Streaming Museum, Al Gore’s Climate Realityand the IUCN. Leah’s augmented reality sound installations have been presented across the world from Times Square in New York City to the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Leah’s work is multi-platform in nature and involves long-term engagement with communities ranging from remote river systems in South India to pacific island communities in Vanuatu. She leads several large-scale research projects including Biosphere Soundscapes, an interdisciplinary venture exploring the changing soundscapes of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and River Listening, which examines the creative possibilities of aquatic ecoacoustics in collaboration with the Australian Rivers Institute. The design of these interdisciplinary projects are responsive to the needs of the collaborating communities and involve the development of new technologies ranging from remote sensing devices for the rainforest canopy to hydrophone recording arrays in freshwater and marine ecosystems.
Leah’s diverse creative practice has resulted in a career where she works as a researcher, artist, consultant and educator with various organisations and institutions. These include designing immersive education programs for UNESCO, directing large-scale interdisciplinary research projects for major universities across Australia and the USA and facilitating partnerships between communities, NGOs and government to explore creative approaches to climate action.
Leah is the president of the Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology, the vice-president of the World Forum of Acoustic Ecology and serves on the board of a range of arts and environmental organisations. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre where she is leading a portfolio of research in acoustic ecology and climate change.
Dr Renata Buziak
Renata Buziak is a Brisbane based photo-media artist, passionate about nature, art and education. Her interdisciplinary art practice includes intercultural and art-science research, cross-disciplinary collaborations, site-specific installation, and curating. For over a decade Renata has been developing an experimental process of images making, she calls the biochrome. This process is based on fusion of organic and photographic materials subject to natural processes to reveal beauty in decomposition, and transformative cycles of decay and regeneration.
In 2016 Renata was awarded a PhD from the Queensland College of Art (QCA) Griffith University, which focused on local Australian healing plants significant to the Quandamooka Peoples of Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island. Currently, with Bloom Collective, Renata is undertaking an art and science residency at the Ecosciences Precinct in Brisbane. ‘The Wrong Kind of Beauty’ project will feature at the ‘Art meets Science’ at the Precinct from 13 August to 7 September : Art Meets Science
Renata received several grants (ie. Arts Qld, RADF) and scholarships (ie. Postgraduate Award). Her award-winning biochrome images are exhibited throughout Australia and internationally in solo (Amsterdam 2017, Poland 2018), and group exhibitions (Poland, Czech, LA USA), and held in public and private collections (ie. The Macquarie Group, Mater Hospital, Redland Art Gallery, Gadens Lawyers, University of Queensland, and in several institutions in Poland).
Renata was a finalist in the Blue Flask 2015 photo competition at the National Museum in Wroclaw, Poland; and in 2014 she was invited to exhibit at Ars Polonia, an international Biennale of Polish artists living abroad. Her monogram Renata Buziak: Afterimage was launched in 2010 by the QCP, and her research paper published in several publications.
In 2006 Renata completed her Bachelor of Photography with First Class Honours at Queensland College of Art (QCA), Griffith University, Brisbane, was a Queensland Centre of Photography board member, and currently is also a sessional academic at QCA and Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
Tristan Schultz
Tristan Schultz is shaped by his Gamilaroi Aboriginal and European Australian heritage which informs his extensive interdisciplinary design experience which sits at the intersection of decolonial thinking, design sustainability. He is founder and creative director of strategic design practice Relative Creative Community Hubon the Gold Coast. The hub is a space of co-evolving creative activities where all ages explore playing, making, thinking and designing ideas, experiences and events that mobilise responsible and sustainable futures.
Tristan futures oriented research and community engagement processes incorporate widely adopted mapping processes he has generated to help people comprehend complex future challenges and to support behaviour changes. Being critically informed and concerned with ecological and social responsibilities drives this work, spanning design facilitation, service design, policy planning and strategy design, social design, graphic and communication design, exhibition design, workshop and event design, participatory and co-design, public art commissions, public speaking and design writing.
He has been commissioned by leading national institutions. Most recently working on the creation of Brisbane City Council’s FutureBNE Water Security Challenge, held as part of World Science Week 2016-2020, on See Change Sand Tracks, which premiered at Festival 2018, Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and QPAC 2018 Out of the Box Festival, with National Trust of Australia (Queensland) on the re-imagination of Cooktown’s James Cook Museum and with Indigenous Business Australia in the development of roving national design events. His research has also led him to collaborate and exhibit internationally including in USA, Egypt, China, France and Greece, and he is one of eight of the founders of the Decolonising Design Group.
He is also a lecturer in Design at QCA, Griffith University.Collaborates with Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian PeoplesSouthern Cross University and has served on boards including Australia Council Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Strategy Panel; and Blakdance, Australia’s peak body for Aboriginal dance. He holds a B.Design and M. Design Honours, has published widely in academic journals, book chapters and conferences and is almost finished a PhD title Decolonising Design: Mapping Futures.