How stories and poetry are reconnecting cultures across the Asia-Pacific

How stories and poetry are reconnecting cultures across the Asia-Pacific

A series of events in Melbourne this October bring together First Nations and non-Indigenous writers, poets and scholars from across the Asia-Pacific.

A two-day symposium, The Art of Cultural Exchange, will connect audiences and share findings of a ground-breaking 10-year program of cultural exchange led by RMIT researchers. It addresses key themes around best practice in ethical encounter and exchange, including questions of borders, sovereignty, voice, language and translation. 
 
Public audiences can connect with a powerful ensemble of Asia-Pacific voices at a night of performance at The Capitol on 9 October, when leading and emerging writers from many nations will perform interweaving stories and poetry. This transcendent night of performance and storytelling featuring an ensemble of the Asia Pacific region’s most charismatic writers and scholars will explore what earth, time and love means in a world of entangled borders and ever-evolving cultures. Featuring award-winning writers Ali Cobby Eckermann, Alvin Pang, David Carlin, Eugenia Flynn, Michelle Aung Thin, Michele Lee and many more.  
 
A reading of a new play, Chu’s Party, by Hmong-Australian playwright and RMIT PhD candidate, Michele Lee, will also take place on 10 October at RMIT’s Kaleide Theatre. A repurposing and response to Don’s Party, the iconic David Williamson play, Chu’s Party sees a group of cosmopolitan international Asian students and graduates gather at a party to watch the 1975 federal election results and try to imagine a future in Australia.

02 October 2024

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WrICE in Yangshou, 2016

Bringing together writers across Asia-Pacific

The RMIT research program, called WrICE, led by RMIT Professors Francesca Rendle-Short and David Carlin, has developed a unique model of ‘collaborative residencies’ since 2014 that brings together small groups of writers, from emerging to internationally renowned, for an intensive period of writing, sharing work, listening and reflecting, alongside public engagements.  
 
More than 90 writers from 15 countries across the Asia-Pacific have taken part, including from Australia alone, Alice Pung, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Lucashenko and Ali Cobby Eckermann. WrICE has conducted programs in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. In 2023, the first Indigenous-led WrICE residency, conceived and facilitated by Ali Cobby Eckermann and Dicky Senda, took place in Senda’s homeland of Mollo and Kupang, West Timor.

WrICE-lead, Professor Francesca Rendle-Short, reflected that the focus has been on how true cultural exchange can occur, taking account of power dynamics and different histories, languages and worldviews.  

“WrICE asks, how can new ties be formed, and old links re-established, through making time to share, listen to, and learn from each other?” Rendle-Short said.

Co-lead David Carlin reflected on the history of the cultures and peoples of the Asia-Pacific having a multitude of connections, some of them dating back thousands of years with cultural flows between South, Southeast and East Asia.

“Forces of colonialism and modernity have interrupted those connections, and new migrants and settlers have arrived, bringing their own stories and erasing others,” Carlin said.  

“However, writers in the region haven’t had the opportunity to get to know their neighbours on a deeper level.”

WrICE has developed a strong, organic network of writers and translators across the Asia-Pacific, sparking all sorts of partnerships between writers to develop new projects, translations, and publications across the region.

The symposium will also include the premiere screening of Tapun Ma Tatef, a documentary about the inaugural Indigenous-led WrICE residency, as well as the launch of the third WrICE Anthology, other people’s windows: new writing across the Asia-Pacific, edited by Francesca Rendle-Short and David Carlin. The anthology was produced by RMIT’s Bowen Street Press.

Story: Ali Barker and David Carlin

02 October 2024

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