LOVE AND RAGE; a day of philosophy, poetry and politics agitating urgent questions for a better tomorrow, today.
LOVE AND RAGE is a one-day event series comprising panels, lectures and workshops on Saturday the 2nd of December 2023 across several venues in the Flinders Quarter precinct including Ross House and Melbourne Theosophical Society.
A call to action, the event series unites First Nations activists, Palestinian rights advocates, perspectives from the trade union movement and independent publishers, punctuated by performance poetry and music – calling attendees to lean-in urgently and be emboldened in these critical times.
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Over thirty guest academics, activists and artists will facilitate the LOVE AND RAGE program. Among them, Amangu Yamatji academic Crystal McKinnon, activist and filmmaker Tarneen Onus-Browne, prominent Gumbaynggirr activist Dr Gary Foley, Palestinian writer Hasib Hourani, Scanlan Prize recipient Jeanine Leane, radical economist Kate Rich, comedian and actor Tom Ballard and Walkley-award winning journalist Je Sparrow, among others. Joining them, Daniel Lopez, Australian editor of the American socialist publication the Jacobin, and Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk, editors at Overland Literary Journal.
Key events at LOVE AND RAGE include a panel hosted by First Nations speakers and Palestinian activists, a deep dive into basic income and a workshop in ‘feral economies’. Plus, panels by the Jacobin explore questions of the Left post-neoliberalism, while Overland Literary Journal’s Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk unpack the consequences of misrepresentation in Australian literary criticism.
The LOVE AND RAGE program is punctuated with special spoken-word poetry readings from Elena Gomez, Ouyang Yu, Lucy Van, Gareth Morgan and Pi O in the basement of Wax Music Lounge. The program concludes with sonic sound journeys at Wax Music Lounge, with more guest artists to be revealed.
“Love and Rage came about through seeing a need for radical ideas and approaches to be explored in central locations,” director Dario Vacirca says. “It is the continuation of the work the Nicholas Building Association has been doing in the struggle to secure the Nicholas Building as a creative space in perpetuity – a site for critical dreaming and creative doing, that is integral to our economy (or social ecology).
“Audiences can expect to be taken into Ross House and welcomed into the event through a First Nations ceremony. ey will then settle in for the morning’s panels and after a lunch break choose to come back into the panel room for more discussions and the delivery of a manifesto for these precarious times, or head to the Monetary Experiment workshop, or learn about the Basic Income Movement in Australia. As the sun sets, audiences can wander to the basement of Wax Music Lounge to hear from some of Melbourne’s best performance poets, before mixing it up with panelists and artists at the bar.
“People are looking for answers and a place to be heard. We’d like them to leave inspired, content and engaged, and charged with a spark toward new ways of thinking, making and doing.”
Tickets to LOVE AND RAGE are available to purchase on a ‘pay-as-you-feel’ basis, with all donations supporting Pay the Rent and the Australia Palestinian Advocacy Network. Tickets are limited and available via Humanitix via the LOVE AND RAGE website.
