-
Conversations with Marianna Shek
Marianna Shek was one of the writers I approached when I decided to profile writers on (or should the preposition be ‘in’? Do you appear in or on…) this blog because I really wanted to continue the conversation that we started in Melbourne. I was immediately drawn to Marianna’s creative passion and energy. When you read this profile, you’ll find out just how multi-talented Marianna is. We could have easily ended up with a novella-length interview if we’d allowed ourselves, but we decided to leave that for another day. Marianna has no immediate plans to travel to Perth, nor I to Brisbane, so we will have to make do with Skype…
-
Interview with Deborah Ruiz Wall – Reimagining Australia
Deborah Ruiz Wall (OAM) is a Filipino-Australian born in Manila who I met at Reimagining Australia, her exhibition at the WA Maritime Museum. The exhibition is based on her research on interactions between Filipino and Australia’s First Nations People. Before she migrated to Australia, Deborah worked as a journalist with the Philippine Broadcasting Service in 1970 and as Press Secretary for the Opposition Leader, Matthias Toliman and later for his successor,Tei Abal in the Papua New Guinea House of Assembly in 1973. When she moved to Australia, she taught communication and social sciences TAFE (NSW). She completed oral history projects that included Redfern Oral History and story sharing between Aboriginal and Filipino…
-
Asian Australian Studies Research Network (AASRN): Perth Symposium
I had the privilege of presenting Maybe it’s Wanchai? to a group of academics at the “Where’s your Asia?” symposium organised by Nadia Rhook and Denise Woods, the co-conveners of AASRN Perth. The person in the centre image is Denise who shared with us her research on the representations of Asia and Australia in Overwatch, a multiplayer video game. (My son says it a really really popular MMORPG that everyone talks about so I sense that he will be asking Santa for a PS upgrade this Christmas). AASRN was set up by Tseen Khoo over a decade ago and I joined after meeting Tseen through our anonymous blogs — I miss the days of…
