Coral Futures Symposium
Date: Saturday 3 October 2026
Time: 9am–3pm
Location: UniSC Sunshine Coast, 90 Sippy Downs Drive, Sippy Downs
Held in conjunction with the exhibition Coral Futures, this symposium brings together artists, First Nations knowledge holders, and researchers to explore what it means to think, imagine, and act alongside coral in a time of ecological upheaval.
If coral has become a bellwether of planetary crisis, how might it also serve as a guide for reimagining our relationship to the more-than-human world? Moving beyond the language of loss and catastrophe, speakers will consider coral as a site of cultural knowledge, inquiry, and creative possibility, asking what new modes of care, kinship, and collaboration might emerge when we look closely at a single organism.
Cost
- $25 full price
- $15 students and concession card holders
Price includes lunch and tea and coffee on arrival.
Free Mob Tix are available. Email uscartgallery@usc.edu.au to reserve your spot.
PROGRAM
Outside UniSC Art Gallery
Grab a tea, coffee, or a cold drink and if you have time, take a look at the Coral Futures exhibition.
Lecture Theatre 2
A Welcome to Country from Kabi Kabi Elder, cultural leader and artist, Aunty Helena Gulash, and an introduction to the symposium from Megan Williams, Manager of UniSC Art Gallery.
Lecture Theatre 2
In this panel, Kabi Kabi artist Lyndon Davis and Jimmy John Thaiday from Erub Arts will explore what it means to care for ocean ecologies and how conservation messages can be shared through art and culture in ways that resonate across different communities and Countries.
Supported by the Australian Government's Regional Arts Fund, provided through Regional Arts Australia and administered in Queensland by Flying Arts Alliance.
Lyndon Davis (Kabi Kabi) is an acclaimed artist, educator and cultural performer. Born and raised on the Sunshine Coast, Davis' practice reflects his deep connection to Country. His most recent work visualises the calls of different species on Kabi Kabi Country using cymatics, the science of visualising acoustic energy, or sound.
Jimmy John Thaiday (Kuz/Peiudu) lives and works on Erub Island in Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait). His practice spans high-resolution digital video and woven ghost-net sculptures, and in 2022 and 2023 he received the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for his videos Beyond the Lines and Just Beneath the Surface, made with Keiran James and Lynette Griffiths. Thaiday draws attention to the climate crisis in Zenadth Kes, including sea levels rising at twice the global average and the damage caused by abandoned fishing nets to the environment and marine life.
Lecture Theatre 2
Artist Rachel O'Reilly is joined by Aunty Helena Gulash (Kabi Kabi) and guests for a conversation that unpacks the politics of contemporary conservation.
Together the panel will examine who gets to define conservation, whose knowledge is heard, and what these questions mean for Country. Moving between the specific and the systemic, this discussion will draw out the tensions and possibilities at the heart of caring for Country.
Supported by the Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre at UniSC.
Rachel O'Reilly is a settler Australian artist, writer and researcher, born in Gladstone, QLD. She was film, video and new media curator at GoMA/Australian Cinematheque and holds an MA (Cum Laude) in Media and Culture from the University of Amsterdam. From 2014–21 she taught at the Dutch Art Institute and edited Theory on Demand for the Institute for Network Cultures. Her artistic work has been presented at institutions including Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Tate Liverpool, the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven) and the Jakarta Biennale. Her long-term project, The Gas Imaginary (2013–2021), explored unconventional gas (fracking) in dialogue with Gooreng Gooreng elders and frontline activists. NORTHERN WATERS (2025) is her third major moving image commission.
Aunty Helena Gulash is a Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi) Traditional Custodian and Elder based on her ancestral lands. An artist and cultural leader, she founded Helena Gulash Consulting, which specialises in Indigenous arts and cultural management. Helena is passionate about truth-telling and decolonising narratives through First Nations-led storytelling. She formerly led the Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency (QIAMEA), supporting artist development, arts infrastructure, and international showcasing. With a background in Indigenous education, including senior roles in state and federal initiatives, Helena continues to advocate for the power of First Nations arts to drive cultural renewal and positive change in the community.
Art Gallery, Maker Space, The Cave
During lunch, you're invited to join a short guided tour of Coral Futures with Hamish Sawyer, starting at 12:30pm from the Gallery foyer. Alternatively, you can visit the Maker Space to hear from HDR students about their work in creative ecologies, or head to The Cave to experience Lyndon Davis' Beeyali project.
Please list any dietary requirements in your registration.
Lecture Theatre 2
Hamish Sawyer (Linden New Art) joins Marian Tubbs, Nicholas Mangan and Laresa Kosloff to discuss what it means to make art through research, and where the research stops and the work begins.
All three artists take coral and the Great Barrier Reef as their subject but arrive from very different directions: Mangan links coral to extractive industry, nuclear testing and deep geological time; Tubbs interlaces found and AI-generated imagery to connect it to supply chains, surrealism and souvenir kitsch; Kosloff repurposes stock footage to skewer corporate greed and outsource the Reef's salvation to AI.
Hamish Sawyer is a curator and writer, currently Curator of Linden New Art in Naarm/Melbourne His practice is shaped by close collaboration with artists, with a focus on mid-career, female, First Nations and LGBTIQ+ practices. Previously Artistic Director of NorthSite Contemporary Arts in Gimuy/Cairns, Hamish has also held positions Caloundra Regional Gallery, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, the Institute of Modern Art and Arts Queensland. He has written for Art Monthly Australasia, ArtLink and VAULT, and contributed texts to monographs on artists including Michael Cook, Laith McGregor and Sandra Selig.
Marian Tubbs is an artist living and working across the land of Bundjalung/Northern Rivers and Kabi Kabi/Sunshine Coast. Her broad research interests include vision technologies, poor materialities and language or text in art. Marian holds a PhD from UNSW Art & Design and is a Senior Lecturer in Art and Design, at Southern Cross University, and previously she was Lecturer in Photomedia at National Art School.
Nicholas Mangan lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne where he is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University. Nicholas is internationally recognised for his practice of material storytelling, specifically sculptural and filmic assemblages that unearth and interrogate the histories embedded in objects, events and spaces. Mangan frequently mines latent histories to confront some of the most pressing issues of our time.
Laresa Kosloff is Senior Lecturer in the School of Art at RMIT. She makes performative videos, short films, audio works and participatory artworks. Her practice examines various representational strategies, each one linked by an interest in the body and its agency within the everyday. Some of her projects are structured around language, whilst others use slapstick physicality to communicate ideas. Recurrent themes across Laresa’s practice include humour and tension between received cultural values, individual agency and free will.
Lecture Theatre 2
Javier Leon and Leah Barclay (UniSC) and guests will explore how emerging technologies are transforming the way we see, hear and care for the reefs of the Sunshine Coast.
From drone surveys and underwater spatial imaging that map these habitats in detail, to hydrophones and acoustic ecology revealing the reef as a living soundscape, this session discusses what happens at the meeting point of creative practice, science and technology.
Javier Leon is a geographer with broad interests in geomorphology and is particularly interested in the study and management of coastal systems including sandy beaches and coral reefs. He has developed and collaborated in multidisciplinary research projects combining field data, geospatial techniques and modelling in study sites across the Great Barrier Reef and Eastern coast of Australia and Pacific Islands including Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. His aim is to answer questions related to links between morphology, ecology and management in the current changing climate and sea-level rise context.
Leah Barclay is a sound artist, designer and researcher who works at the intersection of art, science and technology. Leah's research and creative work over the last decade has investigated innovative approaches to recording and disseminating the soundscapes of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to inform conservation, scientific research and public engagement. Her work explores ways we can use creativity, new technologies and emerging science to reconnect communities to the environment and inspire climate action.
Supporters
Presented with support from the Australian Government's Regional Arts Fund (provided through Regional Arts Australia and administered in Queensland by Flying Arts Alliance), along with the UniSC Creative Ecologies Research and the UniSC Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre, and Linden New Art.
Location
The program will take place across the Art Gallery and Lecture Theatre 2. The two venues located close to each other and both are wheelchair accessible.
Staff will be on hand to help direct you to other locations, including the Maker Space and The Cave, where ancillary activities will be held.
For visitor information, including access and transport options, see our Visit us page.
Questions?
Please contact uscartgallery@usc.edu.au.
Image: Erub Arts (Jimmy John Thaiday, Florence Gutchen, Nancy Naawi, Lavinia Ketchell) Home Reef 2025. Ghost net. Courtesy of the artists and Erub Arts, Darnley Island. Photo: Simon Strong.