The call for climate justice is lingering through our city streets louder than ever. Around the world, industries are making moves to reduce unsustainable practices… albeit at varying degrees of speed.
Read MoreAll Power to All the Brands /
The business of mixing brands and social movements is booming.
Powerful corporations are campaigning for social equality and youth democracy through slick design and perceptive marketing. All while reaping a bounty of spiked share prices, provocative public receptions, expanded markets and ‘woke’ reputations.
The world’s top sportswear manufacturer is motivating a diverse audience to show ‘em what ‘crazy’ can do, while a razor blade supplier is demanding men to take a second look in the mirror.
But what baggage or benefits do commercial interests bring to the table when mixed with serious activist conversations? And who benefits? Working with woke-washed brands can send designers and creatives into an ethical dilemma.
Colloquia Sundays went to Josephmark in Brisbane where panel and audience speculated how critically-thinking creatives can navigate the prickly relationship between brands and grassroots social movements.
Moderated by Rachael Sarra
Panel members
Dr David Sargent
Creative director at Liveworm QCA, design educator at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University
Jenna Lee
Graphic designer, multidisciplinary artist, 2019 John Fries Award finalist, queer, mixed race Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri woman
Jordan McGuire
Graphic designer at Inkahoots, activist and hip hop artist aka MC Synergy
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Enter the Designer: Using Discarded Materials in Mainstream Practice /
Images captured by Mark Burkett
Radical Brisbane: Sustaining Activism and Agency /
This past weekend our panel chatted with community about past, present and future modes of activism in Brisbane. They brought to the discussion a combined experience ranging from organisation leadership at Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) and West End Community Association (WECA), to student-driven, streets-based rallying that pioneered the 60s and 70s as recorded by Carole Ferrier and Raymond Evans in their book, Radical Brisbane.
'We want to enable the community to do things for themselves; not to rely on others to do things for them,' said Erin Evans, president of WECA, as she touched on resilience in communities like West End and how her organisation strategises and plans ahead for action against development in the high-density inner city suburb.
Carole Ferrier, editor of Hecate, and Daniel O'Neill, well-known and experienced Brisbane activist, shared a wealth of story-telling from their days of rallying next to overbearing and violent police in the Bjelke-Peterson era — such as during their anti-racist and anti-Apartheid protest against the Springbok Tour of 1971.
Margot Bligh, AYCC Queensland Coordinator, complemented their views with a youthful organisation-based account of her experiences in recent campaigns such as Stop Adani and AYCC's rally for solar thermal storage in Port Augusta, a mining town in South Australia transitioning from coal.
A big shout out to those in those in the room who posed questions in the second half, and enlivened the conversation through their curiosity and desire to make change in Brisbane.
Moderated by Kara Simpson
Panel
Erin Evans
President of West End Community Association (WECA)
Carole Ferrier
Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies, UQ and editor of Hecate and Radical Brisbane
Daniel O’Neill
Longstanding Brisbane activist and Lecturer at UQ
Margot Bligh
QLD Coordinator at Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC)
