project overview
Artists will be encouraged to create small practical interventions such as simple ecological tools, micro-composting, seed libraries, or local climate futures maps, ensuring artworks have the potential to support genuine community resilience rather than limiting ideas to the public programs.
They will also be invited on application to nominate details including their preferred art project details, site(s), artist collaborators, community and cross-cultural engagement ideas and will be matched with other artist(s).
the interview
what is your primary field of practice?
PANDA WONG: “I am Panda Wong, a poet and editor living in Naarm. I work across sound, performance, and digital spaces to expand on what constitutes a poem, focusing on how it can be experienced beyond the page. My practice explores non-human personhood, ecological decline, and interconnectedness.
Collaboration and interdisciplinary work are key to my practice. I am one-half of the music/poetry project lotus threads, as well as its expanded project lotus web (guzheng, harp, flute, double bass). My chapbook angel wings dumpster fire was published by Puncher & Wattman in 2022, followed shortly by my debut poetry EP, salmon cannon me into the abyss. I also co-edited Best of Australian Poems 2023. In 2026, I was granted The Next Chapter fellowship to work on vermin songs, a sound/poetry project about vermin, how they are shaped in language and their place in the human imagination, specifically in a so-called Australian context.“
LISA SPEED: “I am Lisa Speed, an Australian designer and chef working closely with Indonesian artisans, with a practice shaped by material culture, community, and care for the environment. Over the past 18 years, I’ve built strong relationships with artists and makers in Indonesia, supporting work that respects local craft, ecological knowledge, and cultural traditions.
My work moves between furniture design, food experiences, and community-based projects. I create spaces and objects that bring people together—places where people can connect, reflect, and share something meaningful. For me, both food and design are ways of communicating and exchanging ideas, often through hands-on, sensory experiences. I’m interested in how making, gathering, and storytelling can open up conversation, build stronger communities, and help us think differently about how we live. At its core, my practice is about creating simple, thoughtful ways for people to come together and feel connected again.“
JAHAN XANLÜ: “I am Jahan Xanlü, a Swiss-Iranian-Central Asian writer and artist, based in Naarm. I use a linguistic lens to explore ancient tradition and mythologies and merge them with modern contexts to dream of futures that engage with the degrading ecological realities of the present.
I typically mix Central Asian instrumentation with industrial and doom metal motives within traditional improvisational frameworks. I advocate within the internationalist community radio movement, featuring and hosting shows on HKCR, 3CR…but in contrast, I often work with found objects (physically or digitally) as a means of representing the locale.“
what is your motivation for this project?
PANDA WONG: “As a Bornean-Australian multidisciplinary artist originally from Sibu, I am really interested in working in a neighbouring region of the world and applying those specificities to my research interests of interspecies kinship, other-than-human worlds and multi-species futures. I believe that multi-species futures provide alternative possibilities away from current Western structures of dominion and extraction.
I am deeply familiar with the ways in which this region has been exploited for palm oil, wood, Orientalist ideas of ‘paradise’ and Western outsourcing of spirituality and wellness—my work is interested in questioning language’s role in perpetuating how the other-than-human is shaped, and how that is often used to validate human control of the living world. All of this is central to my practice—as a result, I am drawn to the incubator’s emphasis on collaboration, non-hierarchal making and imagination as a means of building new futures.
I’m also drawn to the opportunities of cross-cultural collaboration with other SEA artists and communities within the proposed Dark Garden framework—opportunities to make, think and collaborate with our Asian-Pacific neighbours are rare. I’m excited by the prospects of also working outside of a monolingual context and the way that would influence my poetic approach to this project.
Additionally, Indonesia has such a rich history of poetry and oral tradition, such as the pantun, syair or sajak—I would love to learn more firsthand about these histories and continuing practices, which share many parallels with my own Malaysian heritage.
Finally, I love the play, curiosity and the unexpected collaboration yields, and often collaborate in my own practice across form. Aside from outcomes, I feel that relational making is so expansive in its focus on process over outcome. This incubator presents the perfect opportunity to engage in multiple forms of co-learning and co-creation with a focus on art practice as climate-oriented praxis.“
LISA SPEED: “My motivation for this project comes from a long-standing interest in how people come together, and what conditions allow for meaningful connection to take place. Across my work in food, design, and collaboration with Indonesian artisans, I have seen how shared spaces—particularly those centred around making and eating—can foster openness, trust, and exchange.
In recent years, I have become increasingly aware of how these forms of connection are being disrupted. Social spaces are often fragmented, attention is divided, and opportunities for genuine, face-to-face interaction are diminishing. At the same time, we are being asked to collectively respond to complex challenges such as climate change, cultural displacement, and shifting social structures. These issues require not only solutions, but spaces where people can listen, reflect, and engage with one another in meaningful ways.
This project is motivated by a desire to create such a space—one that is simple, accessible, and grounded in shared experience. The communal table offers a familiar and universal point of entry, allowing participants to gather through everyday actions like cooking, eating, and storytelling. These acts become a way to open dialogue, bridge cultural differences, and explore collective concerns without requiring formal structures or expectations.
I am particularly interested in how small, participatory gestures can accumulate over time to form deeper understanding and connection. By inviting contributions from participants, the work evolves through collective input rather than a fixed outcome. Ultimately, my motivation is to create a space where people can reconnect—with each other, with place, and with the broader ecological systems they are part of—while imagining more connected and resilient futures together.“
JAHAN XANLÜ: “I have deep ties with Indonesia, having had several projects in Sumatra, Java and Bali. I know the Yogya community well and would love to deepen my ties and establish community workshops and artworks. I also admire the Indonesian grassroots and DIY lens in navigating such issues, and would like to help grow it across the world.
As such seeing the environmental disaster that has destroyed my homelands of Iran and Uzbekistan, I see that ecological art and warning of the incoming disasters on local and communal levels as vital – especially to a place so close to my heart as Indonesia. I appreciate the DIY communities in Indonesia and would jump at any chance to work with them again!
I enjoy working with soil, plants and environmental tools as means of building up awareness and resistance to the incoming climate collapse, this project sounds like a brilliant way to use such items.“
How does your project connect to this theme and element?
PANDA WONG: “Mosquito Love Song’ connects to ‘air’ and interspecies futures on multiple levels. The air is the mosquito’s natural home, a place that can be made hostile by their sounds/presence. They see the carbon dioxide we exhale when we breathe and when we kill them, we use aerosols, which disperse through the air. Grounding the project are music and poetry—invisible vibrations that move through the air as sound systems, connecting us with each other. Underpinning the project are ‘dadirri’ (deep listening) and ‘biophonies’, which are deeply embedded within the element of air, treating air as a network of connections that can be seen through close attention.
This project focuses on questioning and subverting the interspecies relationship between humans and mosquitos, our most lethal companion in the world. This project asks: how can we de-romanticise the other-than-human and dream of kinship without subjecting mosquitoes to our ideals of interspecies futures?
LISA SPEED: “This project connects closely to Community-engaged practice and Interdisciplinary collaboration, grounded in the Earth element. My work has always been shaped by working alongside people—particularly Indonesian artisans—and creating spaces where exchange happens naturally through making, cooking, and sharing time together.
At the same time, the project naturally moves across disciplines—furniture, food, craft, and storytelling—because that reflects how I already work. The Earth element is present through the materials, especially timber, and through an awareness of where things come from, how they’re used, and how we relate to the environments that sustain us.
The table becomes a simple but powerful way to bring people into that process. It invites participation without pressure, allowing conversations and relationships to form through doing, rather than formal structure. This is where community engagement feels most genuine to me.
JAHAN XANLÜ: “The project seeks to achieve and fight for climate justice, specifically with the issue of invasive plants – a common issue in both Australia and Indonesia. However it is also highlighting a positive non-‘aggressive invasive’ shared plant that Indonesian traders gifted to the Yolungu people before British colonialism arrived in Australia, and as such has a secret history of being valued by both cultures, but rarely with public knowledge is.
The work seeks to research into land relations to do with invasive plants and determine ecological knowledge on such plants, learning from current systems, bringing together the ethos of Australian DIY efforts to eliminate invasive species with Indonesian ones.“
Describe your intended methodology.
PANDA WONG: “I intend to develop the ‘Mosquito Love Song’ project through an interdisciplinary approach that combines sound, visuals, live-coding, poetry, and performance to create a final collective poem/performance. These methodologies are curious and searching, open to change and in flux: archival research/community stories. I intend to work with the incubator facilitators to access community archives and libraries to assist with research that will guide my making.
I would love to connect with local journals/publishers and learn more about local storytelling histories and traditions. Poetry/writing will be informed by Cecilia Vicuna’s ‘Deer Book’ and Fran Lock’s work on ferality; I will reinterpret my original research into a poem that explores the mosquito, its relationship to us, and how we can highlight the nuances of these divisive creatures. Using my research into Indonesian forms of poetry, these will inform the structural and technical basis of this poetry. I will also use deep listening prompts (Pauline Oliveros), and dadirri to respond to specific landscapes/environments to shape my writing. For sound and visuals synthesis, I plan to use Strudel for live-coding audio and Hydra for live-coding visuals to be integrated into a performance.
I also plan to interweave field recordings, taped interviews, poetry snippets, and go on sound walks to gather original footage and raw material. Lastly, for collective making, dreaming, and performing, I would love to run poetry/writing workshops with community and fellow artists as part of this process, and engage in collective making. I also intend to work with fellow artists and community members to gather perspectives and community stories surrounding the mosquito. With consent, I would love to sample taped interviews and thoughts and interweave these into the final piece, creating a polyphonic work that neuters the idea of the ‘single voice’—thus reflecting the notion of a multi-species future.“
LISA SPEED: “My methodology is grounded in participatory, material-based, and interdisciplinary approaches, shaped by my ongoing collaborations with Indonesian artisans and my background in food and design. The project will be developed through a process of making, gathering, and exchange, where the communal table is not only constructed as an object, but activated through use over time. The development begins with the design and fabrication of the table using locally sourced or reclaimed timber, acknowledging the material’s origin and ecological context.
Wherever possible, this process will involve collaboration with local makers, reflecting my existing practice of working alongside artisans and valuing shared knowledge. Once installed, the table becomes a site for engagement. I intend to facilitate informal, open-ended gatherings where participants are invited to cook, share food, tell stories, and contribute small objects or handmade elements. These interactions form the core of the work, allowing the project to evolve through collective participation rather than a fixed outcome. Documentation—through photography, video, or written reflections—may be used to capture these exchanges without interrupting their natural flow. Conceptually, the project draws from ideas of social sculpture, where human interaction itself becomes the artwork, and from relational practices that prioritise experience, dialogue, and connection.
It is also informed by ecological thinking—particularly the interconnectedness of systems, materials, and communities—and by the role of everyday rituals in shaping social and cultural memory. While the project begins as a broad framework, it will respond to the specific site, participants, and cultural context of the incubator, allowing the work to shift and grow through dialogue, presence, and shared experience.“
JAHAN XANLÜ: “I intent to locate DIY communities and local experts regarding invasive species and common agricultural processes. Simply ask them about efforts and inviting them to the table and the artistic creation purpose. From prior experience in linguistic research in Indonesia, foreign interest in an issue raises local interest (a sad byproduct of colonial legacy and ‘Western’ privilege). Listening for the first few days is vital.
With the knowledge (or lack of), we really think about the how to observe the invasive species and remove them to integrate them into a work. This could be building thatched roofs, producing pieces of cloth to paint on or cutting wood to turn into block printing than posters or images showing the evil impact of such invasive species. Interdisciplinary collaboration is key. I would want to know what folk songs that mention such species or how they came and incorporate them.
What sounds do they make and how could we create something that encourages others in the communities to remove the plants themselves. Of course locating Roselle plants that link Australia and Indonesia for centuries is in order! I believe it is a happy colour and story that represents this programme beautifully.”
Describe the nature of the community participation,
PANDA WONG: “Community workshops, co-writing, and dreaming using prompts, writing exercises, and deep listening philosophies, connecting with local journals, publishers, and writers, engaging with community archives, oral histories, and knowledge centres, and conducting sound walks (which could be a workshop or guided).
I plan to use taped recordings, interviews, and stories (with consent) to incorporate into the final piece as part of a polyphonic approach, in an attempt to neuter the dominant or singular voice. I am also open to the possibility of community participation in the final poem and performance, co-shaped and created together.“
LISA SPEED: “Community participation in this project is open, informal, and based on shared experience rather than structured roles. People are invited to engage through simple, familiar actions—cooking, eating, making, and talking. These everyday activities become the entry point for connection, allowing participants to contribute in ways that feel comfortable and natural.
Participants can bring small objects, food, stories, or handmade elements, which gradually become part of the table itself. In this way, the work evolves through collective input, with each contribution adding to a growing, shared narrative. There is no fixed outcome or expectation; participation can be brief or ongoing. What matters is the act of showing up and being present. Through this approach, the project creates space for genuine exchange, where community is formed through doing, listening, and spending time together.“
JAHAN XANLÜ: “Asking with DIY communities, ecological groups and artist collectives, and inviting them to the table …there are so many in Yogya! Simply by bringing them to the table to either ask them for knowledge and advice, which of course can grow into something more significant.“
Thank you so much to our Australian artists for sharing their insights and we’re grateful for the opportunity to feature you.
Stay tuned for our upcoming interviews with our Indonesian artists for our next piece!