Breath
20 June -
22 September
Northern Hemisphere: Summer Solstice to Fall Equinox
Southern Hemisphere: Winter Solstice to Spring Equinox
Accessibility
All events will be streamed with captioning. Within 1 week after each live event Auslan, ASL, and voice descriptions will be available for on-demand viewing in our archive. Upon request events will be live interpreted. When attending course events that will not be streamed or public, please request accommodations as needed.
For any questions regarding accessibility contact: info@knowledgeofwounds.com
Program Description
With our breath, we make the world. Every story, every song, every utterance, begins and ends with a breath. In the respiratory organs of every mammal, we see the the inverse shape of our Grandmother Trees, whose exhalations sustain all aerobic life. The air that circulates through and between our corporeal forms vibrates with heard and unheard songs. In love, passion, laughter and grief, our breathing bodies entwine. With the syncopated flow of our collective respiration, we speak and sing our futures into being.
For the first celestial season of K.o.W 2021, we consider Breath as the rhythm of all creation. The artists, thinkers and culture-makers invited to hold us for this season all work with resonant forms: poetics, music and sonic arts, and movement and vibrational medicine.
Praxis
Marika Clymer
10 July 10AM AEST
9 July 8PM EST
For the first of our Praxis offerings, we welcome Marika Clymer. Marika will lead a bodymind centred practice grounded in her work as a Traditional Reiki Practitioner and community healer.
Marika is an animist healer who works within the lineages of her Indigenous Ainu & Japanese ancestors, focusing on plant medicine, earth-based energy work, and elemental magic. She is a teacher and guide, supporting individuals from all lineages to develop an energy work/Reiki practice that is authentic to their experience and their ancestors. She was born and raised, and currently resides on Occupied Duwamish Territory, known to colonial governments as Seattle, WA.
Keynote
Dr Romaine Moreton and Nardi Simpson
7 August 12PM AEST
6 August 10PM EST
Join us for a conversation between Dr Romaine Moreton and Nardi Simpson
Dr Moreton is Goenpul Yagerabul Minjungbul Bundjalung from Tjerangeri (Stradbroke Island), and what is now known as Brisbane and Northern NSW. She is an internationally recognised writer of poetry, prose and film, she has published over 100 poems, prose and short stories and three anthologies of her poetry. While a Research Fellow Filmmaker in Residence at Monash, she completed the powerful transmedia work One Billion Beats, which examined the historical representation of Aboriginal people in Australian cinema.
Nardi Simpson is a Yuwaalaraay storyteller from NSW’s northwest freshwater plains. As a member of Indigenous duo Stiff Gins, Nardi has travelled nationally and internationally for the past 22 years. She is also a founding member of ‘Freshwater,’ an all-female vocal ensemble formed to revive the language and singing traditions of New South Wales river communities
Course
IndigiQueer Poetics: Desire, Flesh, Memory
Ellen van Neerven, Joshua Whitehead
8 August to 6 September
“I do have a tongue
that wants to speak
in the language of cultural desire […]
I want so much more”
Ellen van Neerven, Throat
“Funny how an Indian ‘I love you’ sounds more like ‘I am in pain with you’,” Joshua Whitehead, Jonny Appleseed
Co-facilitated by two leading Indigenous poets and fiction writers, Ellen van Neerven and Joshua Whitehead, this four-week course will delve into the expansive worlds of Indigenous queer, trans, and 2S poetics and experimental writing. This dynamic space for learning and exchange will involve participants in readings, discussion, and creative exercises under the guidance of two celebrated writers. The course will meet virtually once per week, and will invite participants to share in the crafting of relations, memories, and desires that sustain Indigiqueer poetics.
As this course is a closed event, accessibility will be based on those in attendance. Please email info@knowledgeofwounds.com to request captioning or interpretation.
Roundtable
Song, Breath, Ceremony: First Nations Sonic Cultures
Sēini Taumoepeau, Jack Gray, Emma Bastable, Nicholas Galanin and Eric Avery
22 August at 11am AEST
21 August at 9pm EST
Facilitated by Sēini Taumeopeau (SistaNative), this event will bring together a group of artists working in a range of sonic, musical, and vocal arts. Hailing from backgrounds in western classical training, hip-hop, ceremonial song, dance music, and electro-pop, this diverse group of practitioners will explore the relationships between various Indigenous cultural perspectives and lived experiences and the broader fields of popular music, queer club culture/s, and experimental sound.