Federation Court
6.45–6.50PM

Mo’Ju opens the Night of Ideas with an original performance that will move, excite and lift the crowd to new heights.

Recent years have seen multiple ARIA-nominated musician and songwriter Mo’Ju enter new realms of renown, their brand of visceral storytelling striking at the heart of a country whose social and cultural climate was manoeuvring a particular state of unrest and change.

A full spectrum of emotion and sonic textures marry together in Mo’Ju’s music, producing sounds that can be equal measures of sensuality, vulnerability and hard-hitting strength. When their 2018 studio album Native Tongue was released to widespread acclaim, it was not without debate, Native Tongue ignited and inspired some long overdue, sometimes tough, conversations.

The inability to categorise where an artist such as Mo’Ju fits has been a common narrative throughout their career. However, the Naarm-based musician, songwriter, storyteller and third culture kid (Filipino/Wiradjuri), is not here to be boxed in and commodified. Their music is created in alignment with a central artistic vision that is built on truth, authenticity and most importantly, legacy.

Exhibition space
7.10–7.20PM, 7.45–7.55PM & 8.20–8.30PM

Miyama McQueen-Tokita is a koto and bass koto player and improviser. Fusing Japanese traditions with new ideas that are relevant to the present day, she performs contemporary works, improvisation and original music. She is known as a musician who is free and expressive, with a solid traditional foundation, which has led to collaborations with high-profile artists within Japan and internationally. Miyama has been invited to perform as a soloist in festivals such as the Tokyo Jazz Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival and Mapping Melbourne. Ensembles she has collaborated with include the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra, Thin Edge New Music Collective (Toronto), Australian Art Orchestra and Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. She released her first solo album “SONOBE”, in 2020. Miyama has been taught by Satsuki Odamura and Kazue Sawai and has a Masters in music from Tokyo.

The Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) is an agile music organisation and a multi-faceted, flexible chamber orchestra that creates dynamic music with a through-line of improvisation, rooted in jazz and experimental practices. Established in 1994 by visionary pianist and composer Paul Grabowsky AM, over its 30-year history the AAO has garnered recognition for its relentless commitment to representing the diversity of Australian artists, creative music, and cross-cultural collaboration, with a strong legacy of working with and supporting First Nations artists. Now under the artistic leadership of Aaron Choulai, the AAO continues to push the boundaries of art music, finding new connections to Hip-hop, the music of our region and expanding our professional networks in Asia. Through its dedication to artistic excellence and innovation, the Australian Art Orchestra is a driving force, elevating the creative spirit of Australia and creating cultural momentum. 

Exhibition space
7.10–7.20PM, 7.45–7.55PM & 8.20–8.30PM

Ryan Williams is a recorder & ocarina player, improviser, interdisciplinary performance maker & arts producer. His creative practice focuses on composing and improvising new music, and creating exploratory & transdisciplinary projects through skill-sharing collaborations with artists and communities. Ryan performs and creates within improvisatory & exploratory music, site-specific/installation contexts, traditional music from Eastern Europe, Japan, Ireland and the U.S, western classical music & jazz, popular folk music, and video game music. His focus on exploratory & transdisciplinary performance has led to distinct creative projects that balance collaboration between artists from different disciplines, in a skill-sharing environment, to create outcomes in which artists develop a shared performance practice.

The Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) is an agile music organisation and a multi-faceted, flexible chamber orchestra that creates dynamic music with a through-line of improvisation, rooted in jazz and experimental practices. Established in 1994 by visionary pianist and composer Paul Grabowsky AM, over its 30-year history the AAO has garnered recognition for its relentless commitment to representing the diversity of Australian artists, creative music, and cross-cultural collaboration, with a strong legacy of working with and supporting First Nations artists. Now under the artistic leadership of Aaron Choulai, the AAO continues to push the boundaries of art music, finding new connections to Hip-hop, the music of our region and expanding our professional networks in Asia. Through its dedication to artistic excellence and innovation, the Australian Art Orchestra is a driving force, elevating the creative spirit of Australia and creating cultural momentum. 

Exhibition space
7.30–7.40PM & 8.25–8.35PM

Holly is a Melbourne based saxophonist, composer and teacher, cementing her place as a diverse and dynamic new voice in the Australian jazz scene. Her debut release ‘REUNION’ came out in November 2023 through the ABC Jazz Composer Commission. Holly played with the Australian Art Orchestra for the 2023 Melbourne International Jazz Festival for the premiere of new work for ‘Raw Denshi’.  In 2020, she was the recipient of the Melbourne International Jazz Festivals program Take Note, where she was commissioned to write a new suite of music. This resulted in a performance with a jazz sextet with long-time friends and collaborators for the MIJF digital festival ‘These Digital Times’. Holly is passionate about music education and developed a series of online jazz workshops for high schools in Victoria with MIJF during Melbourne’s second lockdown in 2020. She has performed for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, the Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival, NGV’s Summer Series (M-Pavilion).

The Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) is an agile music organisation and a multi-faceted, flexible chamber orchestra that creates dynamic music with a through-line of improvisation, rooted in jazz and experimental practices. Established in 1994 by visionary pianist and composer Paul Grabowsky AM, over its 30-year history the AAO has garnered recognition for its relentless commitment to representing the diversity of Australian artists, creative music, and cross-cultural collaboration, with a strong legacy of working with and supporting First Nations artists. Now under the artistic leadership of Aaron Choulai, the AAO continues to push the boundaries of art music, finding new connections to Hip-hop, the music of our region and expanding our professional networks in Asia. Through its dedication to artistic excellence and innovation, the Australian Art Orchestra is a driving force, elevating the creative spirit of Australia and creating cultural momentum. 

Exhibition space
8:20–8:30PM & 8:40–8:50PM

Rosalind Crisp is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and one of Australia’s most respected contemporary dance artists. Associate Artist of Atelier de Paris for ten years, her dance works are presented throughout France, Europe and Australia (Sydney Opera House, Zurcher Theatre Spectakel, Zodiak Helsinki…). Her performance project DIRt (Dance In Regional disaster zones) responds to the environmental devastation occurring across her home country of East Gippsland.

Great Hall
6.50–7.25PM

Sit with our experts in an open conversation as they uncover how to bridge and mend our communities. How do we make sure that all voices are heard? How can we create a shared sense of belonging and solidarity, particularly through art, at a time where disruptive technologies, geopolitical upheavals and climate (in)justice are affecting our personal lives in unsuspecting ways?

Professor Fiona Jenkins is a feminist philosopher at the Australian National University with particular interests in gender equity, gender normativity, epistemic injustices and the ethics of care. Alongside an active role in the School of Philosophy, she is the Convenor of the ANU Gender Institute where she leads and co-ordinates multi-disciplinary programs and research. She has published many articles and books, which can be found in her research profile at ANU.

Great Hall
6.50–7.25PM

Sit with our experts in an open conversation as they uncover how to bridge and mend our communities. How do we make sure that all voices are heard? How can we create a shared sense of belonging and solidarity, particularly through art, at a time where disruptive technologies, geopolitical upheavals and climate (in)justice are affecting our personal lives in unsuspecting ways?

Lucile Peytavin is an essayist with a doctorate in history, who has worked on the history of women in rural crafts and commerce in the 19th/20th centuries. She co-founded the association Gender and statistics and is a member of the Observatory on the economic emancipation of women. She also works as an expert in violence prevention for the firm Psytel. Her book “The Cost of Virility” aims at exploring how much money our societies would save if men behaved like women.

Great Hall
6.50–7.25PM

Sit with our experts in an open conversation as they uncover how to bridge and mend our communities. How do we make sure that all voices are heard? How can we create a shared sense of belonging and solidarity, particularly through art, at a time where disruptive technologies, geopolitical upheavals and climate (in)justice are affecting our personal lives in unsuspecting ways?

Yuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Sāmoan descent. Through a research-based approach, her practice seeks to challenge the dominant and singular historical narratives and their persistence in the socio-political climate through a wide range of mediums, including performance, sculpture, video, photography, and curatorial practice. Kihara lives and works in Sāmoa, where she has been based over the past 12 years.
Kihara’s works has been presented in numerous exhibitions, among others, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Solo exhibition, 2008); Asia Pacific Triennial (2002 & 2015); Venice Biennale (Aotearoa New Zealand Pavilion, 2022) and Gwangju Biennale (2023). Kihara’s works are held in over 30 permanent collections internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Queensland Art Gallery and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Great Hall
8.00–8.30PM

Sit with our experts in an open conversation as they uncover how to bridge and mend our communities. How do we make sure that all voices are heard? How can we create a shared sense of belonging and solidarity, particularly through art, at a time where disruptive technologies, geopolitical upheavals and climate (in)justice are affecting our personal lives in unsuspecting ways?

A Mauritian journalist and author, Shenaz Patel has published four novels, including Silence of the Chagos, which won the Indian and Pacific Oceans Literary Grand Prix, as well as short stories, plays, children’s albums, historical comics, story collections and Creole translations. She participated in the International Writers Program in the United States in 2016, was in a research and writing residency at Harvard University in 2018, acted in 2019 and 2020 as a mentor in the Women’s Creative Mentorship Program, and leads various creative and training activities.

In 2019, she wrote and directed the play “NIAMA : Princess-slave “, which questions the after-effects and constructions of slavery in the Indian Ocean. In 2021, her book Rêve d’oiseau, published by L’Atelier des Nomades, was awarded the Prix Saint Exupéry in Paris.

The topics of Insularity, womanhood, social tensions, hopes and revolts of the intimate in the face of the world, and the quest for the marvelous run through her multifaceted writing.

Great Hall
8.00–8.30PM

Sit with our experts in an open conversation as they uncover how to bridge and mend our communities. How do we make sure that all voices are heard? How can we create a shared sense of belonging and solidarity, particularly through art, at a time where disruptive technologies, geopolitical upheavals and climate (in)justice are affecting our personal lives in unsuspecting ways?

Professor Greg Lehman is a descendent of the Trawulwuy people of northeast Tasmania, a curator and writer, and a well-known Tasmanian art historian and essayist on Indigenous history, identity and place. He holds a Master of Studies in the History of Art and Visual Cultures from Oxford, and a PhD in Art History from the University of Tasmania, where he is currently a Professorial Fellow. In 2017, Greg led the development of First Tasmanians, the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery’s first permanent Indigenous gallery. He is currently a member of the National Reference Group advising the Northern Territory Government on its establishment of a National Gallery of Aboriginal Art in Alice Springs.

Great Hall
7.30–7.55PM

Is the clothing industry destined to waste and over production? What’s the way forward for a creative, sustainable and accessible clothing revolution?

Dr Alice Payne is a Professor in Fashion and Dean of the School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT. Her research centres on environmental and social sustainability concerns throughout textile and apparel industry supply chains. Alice has examined perspectives on sustainability along the cotton value chain, the cultural and material flows of post-consumer textile waste, and design processes of mass-market product developers, independent fashion designers, and social entrepreneurs. She is author of the book Designing Fashion’s Future: Present Practice and Tactics for Sustainable Change (Bloomsbury 2021), co-author of Fashion Trends: Analysis and Forecasting (second edition, 2021) and co-editor of Global Perspectives on Sustainable Fashion (Bloomsbury 2019). Alice is also an award-winning designer and has exhibited in Australia and overseas, with work featured in A Practical Guide to Sustainable Fashion. Her recent work explores speculative approaches to textile design including design for disassembly and biotextiles.

Great Hall
7.30PM–7.55PM

Is the clothing industry destined to waste and over production? What’s the way forward for a creative, sustainable and accessible clothing revolution?

Born in France, Delphine is the creative behind DELPHINE GENIN, shaping the future of fashion both in the physical and digital world. She is neurodivergent, which influences her ability to see the world as a canvas of endless possibilities. This perspective is the foundation of her creativity, enabling her to explore where others might not dare. An unusual Chief Financial Officer turned Creative entrepreneur, Delphine spent her career exploring the intersections of finance, fashion, and the human desire for self-expression.

She has navigated her career, understanding its conventions and the limitations they can impose. Simultaneously, she has immersed herself in the art of haute couture under the watchful guidance of Lesage, a subsidiary of Chanel, a realm where the sublime and extraordinary are woven with thread and needle. She believes in the potential of digital fashion, the combination of physical and digital experiences, a world where women can visualize, experiment, and express their unique fashion senses without limitations.

Within only two years since commencing the label, Delphine Genin has been described as “pioneering a radical new concept” by the Australian Financial Review. By combining rare craft and tradition with technology, the label remains at the forefront of Australian luxury.

Exhibition space
6.50–7.05PM, 7.25–7.40PM & 8–8.15PM

How do we save our oceans from the impact of climate change? What does our relationship to the seas tell us of ourselves? How do we explore the Big Blue?

Dr Evans is a principal research scientist and team leader with CSIRO based in Hobart, Tasmania. She leads and contributes to research focused on progressing scientific understanding of marine resources and achieving effective ocean management, particularly in relation to national and international fisheries and threatened, endangered and protected species.

Her projects deliver strategic research to national agencies, regional programmes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and international agencies, including the United Nations. She currently co-chairs a panel of experts developing a global set of measurable indicators of ocean biology and ecology for the Global Ocean Observing System and co-leads the group of experts guiding the United Nations regular World Ocean Assessment process.

Exhibition space
Ground Level
6.50–7.05PM, 7.25–7.40PM & 8.00–8.15PM

How do we save our oceans from the impact of climate change? What does our relationship to the seas tell us of ourselves? How do we explore the Big Blue?

A Congo-born French writer and singer, he has written extensively in his novels on humanity’s relationship to the seas and the oceans and was an artist in residence aboard the schooner of the Tara oceanic expedition. His novel Un océan, deux mers, trois continents (One Ocean, Two Seas and Three Continents) was awarded the Ahmadou-Kourouma Award. He has published 9 novels, 2 plays and 1 book for young children. In 2019 and 2020, he was a lecturer in literature at the Mayotte University Centre in the Indian Ocean.

Exhibition space
6.50–7.05PM, 7.25–7.40PM & 8.00–8.15PM

Will the digital economy be a force for good and does it pose one of the greatest dangers to our decarbonized future? Where do we draw the line between digital innovation and a sustainable world?

Xavier is an experienced Head of Strategy, Innovation, and Sustainability, with expertise in Banking, FinTech, AgTech, and Digital. His main focus in on how macro-trends, technology and innovation interact with the environmental, geopolitical and social dynamics shaping our world.

Xavier worked with the EU’s main climate innovation initiative (Climate KIC), the UNDP, and was involved in helping the NSW Government draft its decarbonization plans to reach Net Zero by 2050.

He co-founded 3 major Corporate Innovation programs: NABLab, Suncorp Strategic Innovation, Westpac Innovation Garage.

Xavier is currently the Global Chief Strategy & Impact Officer of specialist consulting firm Palo IT, working across finance, government and NGOs towards the transition to Net-Zero – in Australia, Singapore, Europe and the Americas.He also sits on the Advisory Board of the Water and Environment research institute of Charles Sturt University.

Exhibition space
7.10–7.25PM, 7.45–8PM & 8.40–8.55PM

What’s the point of a banana taped to the wall? What’s the point of speculative physics? What’s the point of studying the Ugaritic language? Really, what’s the point of it all?

Professor Alan Duffy is the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Flagship Initiatives at Swinburne University of Technology, bringing together diverse research teams with industry and government stakeholders to undertake transformative programs in Flagship sectors of hydrogen, renewable technologies, AI, space and aerospace, MedTech and health innovation. He was the inaugural Director of the Space Technology and Industry Institute at Swinburne, finding ways to use space and AI to help companies and communities on Earth. His research background in computational astrophysics saw Alan model universes on supercomputers to understand how galaxies like our Milky Way form within vast clouds of dark matter. Alan is also the cofounder and CEO of mDetect, a spin-off company from his dark matter research, that uses particles from space to scan through rock for mineral exploration, identification of structural weaknesses in tailings dams, and subsidence/air gaps below critical infrastructure.

Exhibition space
6.50–7.05PM, 7.25–7.40PM & 8.00PM–8.15PM

What will the future do to the very fabric of our bodies and our minds? What will remain of our sense of self once we’ve been transformed by technology?

Professor Nicholas Opie BE BSc PhD MBA is a biomedical engineer and world expert in neural interfaces. He is Professor and Laboratory Head of the Vascular Bionics Laboratory, Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, and an NHMRC Research Fellow.

Prof Opie has taken multiple numerous biomedical devices from concept to clinic, including a suprachoroidal retinal prosthesis (bionic eye) designed to restore sight to those with profound vision loss, and a motor neuron prosthesis (bionic spine) that is aimed at restoring independence, communication and mobility to those with paralysis. He has published over 55 peer reviewed articles in journals including in Nature Biomedical Engineering and Nature Biotechnology, and has filed over 90 patents, and was awarded the 2021 NFMRI John Raftos AM Award for Advancing Innovation.

Prof Opie is the founding CTO of Synchron, a neural interface company based in Melbourne and New York whose system aims to provide treatment for debilitating medical illnesses and enable patients to feel empowered by reconnecting online in ways that dramatically improve their lives.

Exhibition space
6.50–7.05PM, 7.25–7.40PM & 8.00PM–8.15PM

What will the future do to the very fabric of our bodies and our minds? What will remain of our sense of self once we’ve been transformed by technology?

Katerina Bryant is a writer based on Kaurna land. Her first book, Hysteria: A Memoir of Illness, Strength and Women’s Stories Throughout History (NewSouth), was published in 2020. She is currently working on a manuscript about women and chess.

Clemenger BBDO Auditorium
7.10–7.20PM

They are leading their field and their community, but their experiences are vastly different. Take a seat in the Auditorium and sink into their ocean of knowledge as they take turn exploring some of the most difficult ethical and political issues of our time.

Yalmay Yunupiŋu is a much loved and highly respected Yolŋu community leader in North East Arnhem Land and was awarded the Senior Australian Of The Year for 2024. As a teacher, linguist Yalmay guided teaching at Yirrkala Bilingual School for four decades, retiring in March 2023. Often called the mother of the school, Yalmay started by translating Dr Seuss books at the community library into her local Yolŋu Matha language. She qualified as a teacher and, with her husband (of Yothu Yindi fame), forged a bilingual teaching approach to make young people strong in their Yolngu language and culture.

Yalmay was twice awarded a ‘Teacher of Excellence’ by the Northern Territory Department of Education and was an Honorary University Fellow at the Charles Darwin University and has been made a life member of the Australian Teachers Union.

If retiring means having a less busy life, Yalmay is far from retired. She remains connected to the Yirrkala school as President of the school council, is a Professor at the University of Melbourne working on projects to support Yolŋu teacher training and helping to archive the Literature Production Centre. Yalmay is passionate about educating the next generation, she also works with the Djalkiri Foundation to support pathways for young learners and is in constant demand for consultations, projects and her traditional healing work. Yalmay continues her family’s legacy, as she looks to how her award can help progress Indigenous rights.

“I just want to teach the world, the nation, about our language. It’s very important. It talks about identity, who you are, where you come from. We want to keep our language strong and alive”.

Clemenger BBDO Auditorium
8.20–8.35PM

They are leading their field and their community, but their experiences are vastly different. Take a seat in the Auditorium and sink into their ocean of knowledge as they take turn exploring some of the most difficult ethical and political issues of our time.

Lung Yingtai is a writer, literary critic and public intellectual. Lung not only has a large number of devoted readers in her native Taiwan, but her works also have great influence in the Chinese-language world in China, Singapore, Malaysia and North America.

Lung entered public service as Taipei City Government’s first minister of culture in 1999 and served as Taiwan’s inaugural Minister of Culture from 2012-2014. She is the author of more than two dozen books, including essays, fiction, reportage, and literary criticism. Her 1985 book, The Wild Fire, created a major cultural stir for its honest and introspective look at the social and political problems facing contemporary Taiwan society.

Big River, Big Sea: Untold Stories of 1949, published in 2009, became a must-read in the Chinese speaking world. She was Hung Leung Hau Ling Distinguished Fellow in Humanities at the University of Hong Kong from 2015-2020. Since 2021 she has been living in an indigenous village on the Pacific coast of Taiwan.

Clemenger BBDO Auditorium
8.00–8.15PM

They are leading their field and their community, but their experiences are vastly different. Take a seat in the Auditorium, and sink into their ocean of knowledge as they take turn exploring some of the most difficult ethical and political issues of our time.

Professor Peter Singer, Australian philosopher, internationally recognized for moral philosophy and as a proponent of effective altruism. This world leading Australian philosopher has revolutionized moral philosophy and ethics. He has authored some of the most transformative essays in contemporary philosophy. A strong advocate for veganism, he founded Animals Australia and The Life You Can Save. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.

Clemenger BBDO Auditorium
7.25–7.45PM

They are leading their field and their community, but their experiences are vastly different. Take a seat in the Auditorium, and sink into their ocean of knowledge as they take turn exploring some of the most difficult ethical and political issues of our time.

Trained initially as a veterinarian, Peter Doherty is Australian immunologist and pathologist who, with Rolf Zinkernagel of Switzerland, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1996 for their discovery of how the body’s immune system distinguishes virus-infected cells from normal cells. In 2002, he joined the faculty of medicine at the University of Melbourne, and from 2014, has been at the Peter Doherty Institute (PDI) for Infection and Immunity, a joint venture between the university and the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

The Nobel award led to an increasing involvement in public science communication, both in his own area of viral pathogenesis and immunity and in topics related to environmental sustainability and climate change. He is active on social media and was a prominent commentator through the first two years of COVID-19. After working on infection and immunity at one level or other for 60 years, he moved to emeritus status at the University of Melbourne in July 2023, though he continues to be the Patron of the PDI.

Peter is the author of many books, including The Beginner’s Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize: A Life in Science (2005), An Insider’s Plague Year (2021) and most recently Empire, War, Tennis and Me (2022).

Exhibition space
7.10–7.25PM, 7.45–8.00PM & 8.40–8.55PM

What’s the point of a banana taped to the wall? What’s the point of speculative physics? What’s the point of studying the Ugaritic language? Really, what’s the point of it all?

Lisa M. Given, PhD, FASSA, is Director, Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, and Professor of Information Sciences at RMIT University. Her interdisciplinary research in human information behaviour brings a critical, social research lens to studies of technology use and user-focused design, including people’s experiences of artificial intelligence. Her studies embed social change, focusing on diverse settings and populations, including in healthcare, workplaces, schools, and everyday life. A former President of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Prof Given is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and lead author of Looking for Information: Examining Research on How People Engage with Information (2023).