Watch on YouTube: The Relationship is the Project: Working with Communities Conversation Series #1

On Tuesday 1 August, Jade Lillie hosted a panel including Adolfo Aranjuez, Dr Tania Cañas, and Dr Ruth De Souza. They shared experiences around access and inclusion, cultural safety, and representation and how to manage the 'epic fails'.

Recorded Live on Tuesday 1 August at Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers Street, Abbotsford, Community Room, 6pm to 7.30pm.

The way we view and navigate working with communities has shifted in the post COVID world and continues to evolve. The importance of community voices and self-determination was made strikingly evident by mistakes made. New opportunities exist to interrogate the way in which practitioners, artists and cultural workers can better engage with community-based projects.

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The Relationship is the Project was initially conceived and curated by Jade Lillie in 2019.

Pitched as a go-to resource for practitioners wanting to better understand how to work with communities, it is a collection of short essays showcasing practitioners from across Australia who are working with communities.

With the first edition now sold out, the second edition (a collaboration between Jade Lillie and Kate Larsen) is set to launch in early 2024, published by NewSouth Books.

Borrow the first edition from Yarra Libraries

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About the panellists

Dr Ruth De Souza FACN is a nurse, writer, community-engaged researcher, creative practitioner, and consultant. Ruth hosts the Birthing and Justice podcast, hosting conversations about birth, racism, and cultural safety with changemakers working within the birthing sector to break down the structures built on colonisation. She is a mentor for the Australian Women in Digital Health Leadership Program, a Fellow of The Australian College of Nursing and Honorary Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences - Te Ara Hauora A Pūtaiao at Auckland University of Technology.

Adolfo Aranjuez is an editor, writer, speaker, and dancer. His career across independent publishing and the creative arts includes current tenures as the Melbourne International Film Festival’s Publications & Audience Development Manager and as Liminal’s Publication Editor, and previously as Editor-in-Chief of Metro and of Archer. His essays, criticism and poetry have been published widely, including in Meanjin, Right Now, Screen Education, The Manila Review and Cordite, and he has presented panels and workshops, judged literary prizes, consulted, and performed for a range of cultural, community, educational and government organisations. Find out more at adolfoaranjuez.com.

Dr. Tania Cañas is the Artistic Lead at Arts Gen cohealth, a community arts and health organisation addressing the social determinants of health. She currently teaches in Global Mobility at RMIT University and has recently been awarded the IETM Global Fellow 2023.

Thank you to Abbotsford Convent for hosting and Cultural Catering for delicious snacks.

WATCH HERE