Blak and Bright

Three young writers, Jazz Money, Teela May Reid and Davey Thompson, have been corresponding in the months leading up to the Festival. They’ll share snippets of their correspondence and the things that matter now.  

Free – bookings essential.

12.30pm—1.30pm @ The Wheeler Centre: Performance Space

 

Jazz Money (she/they) is a poet and artist of Wiradjuri heritage, a fresh-water woman currently based on beautiful sovereign Gadigal land. Her practice is centred around the written word while producing works that encompass installation, digital, film and print. Jazz’s writing has been widely performed and published nationally and internationally. Their poetry has been recognised with the 2020 David Unaipon Award, the Aunty Kerry Reed-Gilbert Poetry Prize, the University of Canberra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Poetry Prize, a Copyright Agency First Nations Fellowship and a First Nations Emerging Career Award from the Australian Council for the Arts, amongst others. Trained as a filmmaker and arts worker, Jazz specialises in story telling, community collaboration and digital production, working with First Nations artists and communities to realise digital projects. Jazz’s debut collection ‘how to make a basket’ is available now from University of Queensland Press. www.jazz.money

Teela Reid (she/her) is a proud Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman born and raised in Gilgandra western NSW. Teela is lawyer, activist and storyteller who is committed to eliminating systemic racism in our society. Currently, she is a Sydney-based solicitor with experience practicing in criminal and civil law. Previously, Teela was tipstaff to the Honourable Justice Lucy McCallum of the NSW Supreme Court. In 2021, Teela was named as a Future Shaper by Time Out Sydney for her public advocacy across a range of mediums. She was also awarded the 2020 UNSW Young Achiever for her contributions to the community, her advocacy as a working group leader on s 51(xxvi), the Race Power, in the Constitutional dialogue process that culminated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart that culminated in the most historic calls for a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Australian Constitution and a Makarrata Commission to enable a process of Treaty and Truth-telling. Teela was also recognised for her work as a key thinker and leading advocate behind the Walama Court, a proposal to establish an Aboriginal sentencing court at the NSW District Court jurisdiction, in addition to her full-time job as a criminal defence lawyer at Legal Aid NSW.

Davey Thompson is a Bidjara, Inningai, Wakka Wakka and Gubbi Gubbi man from Barcaldine. Currently living on Wurundjeri Country, he’s a writer, producer, activist, and star of All my Friends are Racist.