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The Wheeler Centre

This Alien Nation / Migration

Vahideh Eisaei, Khalid Warsame, Maria Tumarkin, Hana Assafiri, Sofija Stefanovic, Alice Pung, Sam Pang and George Megalogenis

In an increasingly connected world where the question of immigration is often an anxious or heated one, being a newcomer can be uncomfortable, funny and weird. But it also makes for some great stories.

Each month at Joe's Pub in New York, This Alien Nation stages a celebration of immigration – inviting a handful of interesting, talented writers and performers to present stories about migration. Typically, those stories run the gamut from heartbreaking to hilarious – encountering language barriers, cultural missteps, rumbles, romance and more.

For the first time in Australia, host Sofija Stefanovic welcomes some of her favourite outsiders for a celebration of elsewhere and right here. Come for the stories and leave with some feelings – with restaurateur and Speed Date a Muslim founder Hana Assafiri, writer Khalid Warsame, journalist George Megalogenis, author and lawyer Alice Pung, musician Vahideh Eisaei and cultural historian and critic Maria Tumarkin.

Vahideh Eisaei

2 Jul 2018

Past event

Promo image for The Big Grapple: Loving and Loathing New York City

MEL&NYC

The Big Grapple: Loving and Loathing New York City / Biography & memoir

With Sami Shah, Dave Graney, Brodie Lancaster and 6 others

New York, we love you … but you’re bringing us down with your sloppy pizza slices, your stinky subway and your surplus of models, moguls and movie stars.

Sure, you've got your world-class art museums. And, yes, we know, you're the birthplace of hip-hop. And okay, okay, you've got Broadway and bagels and Beyoncé. Congratulations on the High Line. But…

Teju Cole: Blind Spot / Art

With Teju Cole and Anwen Crawford

‘Every line in every poem is the orphaned caption of a lost photograph.’

Teju Cole is an artist whose work embraces ambiguity and enigma. We see this in his fiction (especially his acclaimed 2011 novel, Open City) and in his essays for the New Yorker. We see it in his photography columns for the New York Times and in his…

23 Mar 2018

Past event

Books and Ideas at Montalto

Robyn Davidson / Biography & memoir

With Robyn Davidson and Elizabeth McCarthy

There are restless people ... and then there is Robyn Davidson.

She’s the kind of person who spends months travelling through western India with nomadic Rabari cattle-herders. And, perhaps most famously, she’s the kind of person (well, the only person) who undertakes 2,700-kilometre journeys across Australian desert with four feral camels and a dog for company. Her account of that…

5 Mar 2018

Past event

Teju Cole: Blind Spot / Travel

With Teju Cole and Anwen Crawford

‘Every line in every poem is the orphaned caption of a lost photograph.’

Podcast episode

Cover image for of What I Can See Right Now

The Messenger

What I Can See Right Now / Migration

It's raining on Michael's last afternoon on Manus Island, and Aziz drops by to catch up. They discuss where things are at with Aziz and the other men, and what he expects will happen next. Then, it's time to say farewell.

This episode will be the last of our short updates – but we'll return soon with another full episode, unpacking what Michael found when he visited Manus Island.

'If I can predict, the only thing that's gonna happen is we will be just forgotten in this island.'

Abdul Aziz Muhamat

Abdul Aziz Muhamat in Lorengau, Manus Island — Photo: Michael Green

In this update

Abdul Aziz Muhamat

Michael Green

Our theme music was composed by Raya Slavin. Music used in this episode includes 'Please Gamelan Again' by Colleen, and 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World' by Tomoki Kanda.