Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Monday 02 March
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Language demands that we put things in neat, normalised categories. Words like ‘fat’ become shorthand for unattractive or lazy. Labels like ‘black’ or ‘Asian’ are applied to people who may identify simply as Australian. Too often, we make assumptions about sexuality and gender based on how someone dresses, speaks or styles themselves.
But bodies resist being pigeonholed by language. Words don’t neatly define who we are: identities are usually messier, more complex – and ultimately, more interesting – than a snap judgement based on what our bodies communicate.
We’ll look at what the body can realistically tell us about identity, what we can’t assume – and the space in between. We’ll open a space for all different kinds of bodies – fat bodies, fit bodies, old bodies, diasporic bodies, even absent bodies – to communicate their true identities.
Join us to chew the fat and get the skinny on bodies, language and communication, in an event that mirrors The Malthouse’s Body/Language, the first chapter of its 2015 season.
Presented in partnership with Malthouse Theatre.
(Image: Kelli Jean Drinkwater. Photographer: Toby Burrows.)
Featuring
Quinn Eades
Quinn Eades is a researcher, writer, and poet whose work lies at the nexus of feminist and queer theories of the body, autobiography, and philosophy. Eades is published nationally and internationally, and is the author of all the beginnings: a queer autobiography of the body, and Rallying.
Eades is a Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at La Trobe University, as well as the founding editor of Australia's only interdisciplinary, peer reviewed, gender, sexuality and diversity studies journal, Writing from Below. He is currently working on a collection of fragments written from the transitioning body, titled Transpositions.
In 2015 Quinn Eades changed his name and gender. Prior to 2015, he was writing and speaking as Karina Quinn.
Author photograph by Jamie James.
Kelli Jean Drinkwater
Kelli Jean Drinkwater is a filmmaker, artist and activist recognised internationally for her creative practice and voice in radical body politics. Kelli Jean uses the body as a site to explore themes of identity, queer and feminist theory and society’s obsession with 'perfection'. Often confrontational, her work aims to investigate the complex relationship we all have with our bodies.
She is an interdisciplinary artist creating within and outside the genres of performance, film and image making.
In 2016, Kelli Jean was asked to present a TedXSydney talk on fat phobia, at the Sydney Opera House, which has received over 1.7 million views.
Kelli Jean has performed, hosted and curated events in London (UK) for Club Antisocial, Duckie and The Place. Recent performances include Force Majeure’s Nothing to Lose for Sydney Festival and Dance Massive at The Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, Night Craft for MCA’s Artbar, Tableau Vivant for Underbelly Arts Festival, Monsta Gras at The Red Rattler Theatre and Department H in Tokyo. She is a resident artist with The Glitter Militia performance collective in Sydney, Australia.
As Artistic Associate on Force Majeures’ award winning dance theatre production Nothing to Lose, Kelli Jean collaborated with renowned Director Kate Champion. Co-commissioned by Sydney Festival and Carriageworks, the show had sell out seasons for both Sydney Festival and for Dance Massive and The Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne.
Kelli Jean is an award-winning filmmaker working across many roles and genres of storytelling, with a focus on documentary. Her short documentary Aquaporko! (2013), won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at QueerScreen Mardi Gras Film Festival in 2013.
She was the primary editor on The Pink House (2017), directed by Sasha Ettinger-Epstein, which won the Documentary Australia Foundation award for Best Documentary at Sydney Film festivals in 2017.
Kelli Jean directed, edited and wrote Monsta Gras (2018), a short documentary commission for ABC ARTS as part of their Love Bites series.
Nothing to Lose (2018) is Kelli Jean's first feature documentary as director, editor and writer. Now available on SBS ON Demand.
Clementine Ford
Clementine Ford is a Melbourne-based writer, speaker and feminist thinker. She is a columnist for Fairfax’s Daily Life and is a regular contributor to the Age and Sydney Morning Herald. Through her twice-weekly columns for Daily Life, Clementine explores issues of gender inequality and pop culture. Fight Like a Girl is her first book.
Her ability to use humour and distilled fury to lay bare ongoing issues affecting women has earned her a huge and loyal readership. Clementine’s work has radically challenged the issues of men’s violence against women, rape culture and gender warfare in Australia, while her comedic take on casual sexism and entertainment has earned her a reputation as an accomplished satirist.
Alice Pung
Alice Pung OAM is the author of the bestselling memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, and the essay collection Close to Home, as well as the editor of the anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First Lesson ...