Blak and Bright

Across two hours six activists from a range of social justice sites, curated by Crystal McKinnon, including Elder Activist Aunty Ronnie Gorrie, will present their curated, passionate ten-minute talks with time for audience responses. 

Free – booking not required.

12.30pm—2.30pm @ State Library Victoria Forecourt

 

Dr Crystal McKinnon is an Amangu Yamatji academic, researcher and community organiser. She is a historian and a critical Indigenous studies scholar, who is currently working at RMIT as a Vice Chancellor’s Indigenous Research Fellow in the Social and Global Studies Centre. Her research work has looked at concepts of Indigenous sovereignty, justice and law, and Indigenous social movements, resistance and protest. Crystal is the co-editor of Aboriginal History journal, and of History, Power and Text: Cultural Studies and Indigenous Studies (UTS ePress, 2014), and her work has been published in many books and journals, the most recent including Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies (2020), Cambridge Legal History of Australia (2021), Biography, and Australian Feminist Law Journal. She has extensive governance experience having previously served for a number of years on the Boards of both Flat Out and of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Services Associated Limited, and she is currently a director on the Board of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and she sits on the steering committee for the Law and Advocacy Centre for Women.

Ronnie (she/her) was a recipient of Creative Victoria’s First Peoples funding program for the writing of ‘Nullung’. Ronnie was also the recipient of The Wheeler Centre Hot desk Fellowship 2020. Ronnie is also the recipient of the Inaugural First Nation Writer’s Residency for the Australian Council for the Arts 2021 as well as the recipient of the First Nation Writer’s Fellowship for Varuna the National Writers House. Ronnie’s had her first Stage Play – ‘Nullung’ (reading) at the Melbourne Theatre Company June 2021. Ronnie has also been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary awards 2022 for the writing of Black and Blue.