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A selection of our writings from 2009 to the present. If you'd like to keep up to date with our latest posts, please subscribe below.

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Year: 2022

Terra Nullius – grief, politics and praise (in non-segregated Djaara mother country)

Feb 3, 2022 | terra nullius | 6 comments

We came together with community this week for the annual Terra Nullius breakfast, held outside the Daylesford Town Hall each January 26. The Terra Nullius breakfast is a public ceremony, open to all, that examines the historical legal fiction used to establish the nation-state of Australia; reflects on the grief and suffering of First People as a result of this legal tactic of colonisation; and celebrates both the survival and renewal of Indigenous cultures in the face of systemic violence, segregation and discrimination.

Warm and special thanks to storytellers Rebecca Phillips (Pangerang and Djaara woman) and Dale McDonald (Papal-kil tharat Tjinang-Muddy featherfoot Mukjarrawaint tribal lands Garweid), and didgeridoo player Mitchell Boney (Kamilaroi and Kooma Merri Wurri man, known as Warrabaa, meaning Saw-neck turtle in Gamilaraay). This year’s gathering was documented by Miles at Ideas Agency. Thank you so much Miles and your assistant, Briega, for your thoughtful work.

We hope this video captures some of the nourishment we experienced at this event, and it gives you some thinking and feeling for starting your own event in the country that sings forth life for you.

Signing off from beautiful, unceded Djaara mother country.

Artist as Family

Celebrating the art of different story (from outside the tent)

Jan 29, 2022 | Covid-19, permaculture, social warming | 32 comments

Last weekend Castlemaine Free University (CFU) hosted an event featuring two new books: Terry Leahy’s The Politics of Permaculture and Pam Nilan’s Young People and the Far Right. The day before the event we had spoken to the organiser to ask if CFU would be willing to host the event in a way where it was possible for everyone to attend. After our request was declined a small group of us, including permaculture elders David Holmgren and Su Dennett, decided to hold a peaceful protest outside the venue.

There were a dozen or so of us who brought deck chairs and sat outside on the footpath, and another small cohort of people who could have gone inside but chose to show solidarity by staying outside with us.

A huge thank you to Maggie from The Northern Arts Hotel who installed a speaker on the street so we could listen in, and who arranged for jugs of water to be brought out in the heat of the afternoon. Thank you for your compassion, Maggie, and thank you to community elder Nikki Marshall for always lighting a path of love, for helping to bring people together and stating the case for our inclusion.

Many thanks to Miles from Ideas Agency for filming on the day, and to Ian Lillington for the additional photos and footage.

We hope your week has been full of compassionate and generative conversations, and that you find this video useful for your current thinking.

Signing off for now from us here,
Artist as Family x

The shadow world of Jab the kids (six months on)

Jan 18, 2022 | Covid-19, song | 24 comments

In this week’s video we tell the origin story of our provocative rap-opera, Jab the kids, six months on. When we first published it this video-song received a tremendous reception – everywhere along the spectrum of human emotions, from outrage to praise. So with all that has passed since, with more vaccinated people being infected with Omicron (as is attested by the countries who actually release these figures),

where are we now? These mandated inoculants have eroded civil, democratic and human rights. They have attacked peoples’ sovereignty. The engineered virus, its shapeshifting variants, and the novel inoculants that have attempted to control them are emotionally and biologically fatiguing the world. Why are governments still on an unstoppable one-way, ‘stick to one message’ track to jab the kids? Is it just ideological bloody-mindedness or is it more nefarious? While it’s been decades of manipulation to gear people up, especially children, for ever-increasing numbers of vaccines, should we really accept this next-level colonisation of our human terra, our sovereign bodies? Children (under 18), as you can see in the graph above, have 100% more chance of contracting Covid if they are vaccinated, and yet children’s survival rate is even higher than your average adult, which is ridiculously high. So what is the gain? Welcome to the shadow world of Jab the kids.

You can download the MP3 version of the song here.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our offering this week.

Sending love to you all,
Artist as Family

 

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