Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 03 July
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM
The events in Australia and internationally on Wednesday 26 June demonstrated just how much of circus contemporary politics has become. What next for democracy? What role do artists play in making social change – or just making sense of it all? Join us as we unwind and try to understand our contemporary political landscape, and its effect on creativity, culture and our city’s artists.
Joining us for this discussion are guests Brienna Macnish, Georgie Mattingley and Ben Eltham. Your host will be Emily Sexton.
The Breakfast Club
Breakfast Club is a platform that interrogates how the world and art collide.
Following a highly successful series at the Wheeler Centre during the 2012 Next Wave Festival, your early morning shot of artistic and intellectual insight is back. Every Wednesday morning for four weeks this June, we’ll explore different issues that stimulate our artists and creative thinkers as they develop new work.
We’re not interested in expert-led formats or a room full of people thinking the same things; we want big opinions, good discussion and personal stories. And coffee (that’s important). Each event runs for one hour, and will be punctuated by a series of provocations from artists, writers, thinkers and commentators.
The biennial Next Wave Festival will take place in May, 2014. The aim of this series is to get the artists (and audiences) thinking about the big questions.
Light breakfast by Yoghurt Culture and Small Batch coffee by donation.
More online
Stop, collaborate and listen. Follow #NWbclub to discuss Breakfast Club topics on Twitter (two ‘Live Scribes’ will be tweeting each event); subscribe to the brand new Breakfast Club podcast (via Soundcloud or iTunes) and catch up with blog posts at the Next Wave website.
Featuring
Georgie Mattingley
Georgie graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in 2012. Often adopting a playful humour and a quirky use of visual aesthetic, Georgie aims to beautify confronting spaces or events, as a tool to question people’s limits and values.
She currently works at a local slaughterhouse, investigating the social and visual dynamics within Melbourne’s dense industrial landscapes. Georgie has spent time practicing in Melbourne, Australia and in Mumbai, India.
Ben Eltham
Ben Eltham studied neuroscience, philosophy and cultural studies before editing the University of Queensland's Semper Floreat in 2000. He has worked as a freelance journalist and essayist since 2001 for a range of national publications, including New Matilda, Crikey, Guardian Australia, the Courier-Mail, Overland and the Sydney Review of Books. Ben is New Matilda's National Affairs Correspondent and a Research Fellow at Deakin University's Faculty of Arts and Education.
Ben spent the majority of the 2000s as a creative producer and festival director at festivals and events including Straight Out of Brisbane, This Is Not Art, Melbourne Fringe, Woodford Folk Festival and as an independent producer and curator. He is a former Queensland Young Writer of the Year.
Emily Sexton
Emily Sexton is a former Head of Programming for the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas.
She was the recipient of a prestigious Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship in 2014. Previously, she was Artistic Director of Next Wave (2010–14), where her key achievements were a radical rethink of an arts festival model, and a series of landmark commissions, publications and talks featuring First Nations artists, co-curated with Tony Albert and Tahjee Moar and titled Blak Wave.
In 2013, she was Artistic Director of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust’s 20th Anniversary Celebrations at the Melbourne Recital Centre. She was also Creative Producer for Melbourne Fringe Festival for 2008–10.
Emily has been a proud Board Member for Arena Theatre Company, Snuff Puppets and Theatre Network Victoria, and is alumnus of the Australia Council’s Emerging Leaders Program (2011). She is a regular peer assessor for the Australia Council for the Arts, Creative Victoria, and other philanthropic trusts and foundations. Emily holds a Bachelor of Arts (Media and Communications, English) from the University of Sydney (2005). She is a regular host and facilitator for writers’ festivals and arts organisations around Australia.
Brienna Macnish
Brienna Macnish is a Melbourne based theatre-maker. Her practice is characterised by an interest in non-traditional forms, a thoughtful engagement with site, striking visual aesthetics and social relevance.
Recently Brienna has developed new Australian writing, created immersive performances and designed participatory installations.
In 2013, Brienna completed a second stage of creative development for Colony an immersive performance work in an installed environment built from thousands of reclaimed plastic grocery bags. In 2012 Brienna directed Tuesday by Louris van der Geer for MKA and developed The Hide with Mattie Young for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.