September 13, 2023 ‐ Indigenous Conversa on Series with Troy‐Anthony Baylis & Ellen van Neerven
Nicole Clark: Welcome everyone, I’m Nicole Clark I’m the University Librarian. Before I start, I would like to acknowledge the Turrbal and Yugara, the First Na ons owners of the lands that we are on today, and pay my respect to their elders, customs, crea ons, and spirits, and acknowledge that these have always been places of teaching and learning, research, coming together, crea vity, sharing stories and they’ve always been Aboriginal land.
I’d like to acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today. I’d like to extend my respect, especially, at this me, which we know, there is a lot of debate and conversa on going on around us. So, I would like to send my respect at this point and hopeful for a great outcome.
So, welcome. This is our third ‘In Conversa on’ event for the year and for those of you who don’t know, the ‘In Conversa on’ event is Deb Duthie – the Associate Professor of the Faculty of Health, this is her idea. ‘In Conversa on’ event is a great opportunity to get Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are outstanding in their fields onto campus, have a chat, celebrate Indigenous excellence, and find out all sorts of things, share all sorts of things, big and small and everything in between. I love these events and I’m really pleased to be able to work with Deb.
So, I’m standing here with Troy and Ellen, and I will introduce you in just two moments, we are excited to have you here. I have a couple of other things that I have got to do in the mean me, I would like to thank, we are in this fabulous se ng, how lucky are we to be in amongst Troys art during Pride Month. So, I extend my thanks to our friends at the gallery, Venessa, thank you, Renee and Blair thank you for having us here. To everyone here who is from the LGBTQIA+ community, the queer
community, I extend a warm welcome to you, it’s wonderful to have you here. So, I’m going to stop speaking in just a moment. I have to tell you, that if anything happens the exits are just here and here, I’ve been wan ng to do that all day, here and here and the toilets are just around the corner. There is food and drink here and we will have a chance to eat at the end as well.
So, with further ado, this is my great pleasure to introduce Ellen and Troy, our fabulous speakers today. As I’ve said we’ve been blessed to have speakers come in this year and today we are doubly blessed, thankyou both for your me.
I’ll introduce Ellen first, Ellen van Neerven, thanks Ellen for coming, is an award‐winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh, Southeast Qld and Dutch heritage. She writes fic on, poetry, plays and non‐
fic on which have collected an extensive number of literary awards in recent years. Ellens first book
‘Heat and Light’ was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award, and the NSW Premier Literary Award for Indigenous Writers’ Prize. Ellens latest book is in store, and we’ve got copies here and Debs been reading it, and I’m reading it, and its here and its fantas c. It’s a personal
examina on, the struggle rela onship with race, gender, and sexuality. So please make Ellen feel very welcome (audience applause) This is the third me we’ve had you back Ellen, we are so delighted that you came back.
Ellen van Neerven: It’s wonderful to be back. Thankyou.
Nicole Clark: So now it’s my pleasure to introduce Troy, Troy‐Anthony Baylis, who’s wonderful work we are all surrounded by, is a self‐described Queer Aboriginal ar st of Jawoyn, Northern Territory and Irish descent. A QUT Alumnus and a former course co‐ordinator of Aboriginal Cultures Compara ve Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Philosophy at the University of South Australia. Troys mul ‐
disciplinary approach to materials is in direct accordance with an explora on of intersec onality, that
include Queer aesthe cs, Indigeneity, art history and pop culture references, and it’s absolutely fabulous. I pre‐empted things, Troys fabulous solo exhibi on, adorned and all around us is currently showing, as you can see and there will be me to have a look at it and it’s here un l the 1st of October. So, with that I will pass over to the both of you. Thank you so much.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: Thank you so very much.
Nicole Clark: I should have said please make Troy feel welcome. (Audience applause)
Ellen van Neerven: Firstly, thank you all so much everyone for coming and listening to us today. We are going to keep things pre y casual and informal. We are going to have a yarn about; we are both former QUT students. We are going to talk about how we got to this point, Troys beau ful exhibi on and my new book. We are going to circle back and talk a li le bit about what inspires us and how things have been.
I too what to acknowledge Yugara and Turrbal land and the people of this place and also acknowledging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People present today.
We have some notes to keep us on track today, but we are going to largely just be ge ng to know each other I guess in this environment.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: And sharing a bit of our journey and even though its essen ally about us, we do know that its relatable, and that the intersec onality of our being crosses over. First, we are just going to start with both of us being QUT alumni, we’re a genera on apart, we thought that might kind of be a good place to start.
I was a QUT student undergrad 30 years ago, when I started. I was doing the Visual Arts course, primarily at Kelvin Grove although my first year was in Merivale Street in South Brisbane which was at the me, a dirt road with a great big warehouse shack on it. So, the first‐year students could run‐a‐
muck and run‐a‐muck I certainly did. I must have been a nightmare really for some of the more mature aged students, I’d just turned 17, I was 16 when I got into art school in that December before the first term started.
I was very fortunate enough to be part of a small cluster of Indigenous students from around the state, we went through the Oodgeroo unit back in those days. In December we got to go to the Oodgeroo Noonuccal property and spent me together as a li le collec ve. It was a really, a gorgeous grounding, safe space to be crea ve and lean into working out how to be ourselves. Which s ll, it did take a while, I suppose it’s the whole luck journey to be able to be yourself without judgement, because that stuff is internal and external that it’s so powerful that stuff, because you don’t know where the line is. So that’s part of the beginnings, and just to say, it’s interes ng in hindsight, the ways that I would express myself isn’t radically different to what I do now. Just now it knows what it is, the look of me was really ‘out there’, with bright coloured hair and really ‘out there’ ou its and of course car accidents. We’d only just had law reform in Queensland, but of course, we know socially that takes a bit longer, I was just being me with my li le group of friends, but I realised in hindsight how
‘out there’ visually and brave that kind of was. I mean I went to ‘Sizzlers’ in the Myer centre in full drag and filled up the handbag with Smar es and slipped over with this gigan cally tall skinny person in this garish ou it, and I fell over, and the Smar es rolled across the floor of the restaurant. So, it was like, a en on, a en on, a en on, but feeling that I didn’t want a en on, but in any case, the
dynamics were interes ng. You’re already yourself and then it feels like I had to wait un l I got to midlife before I realised like that’s the uniqueness, that’s the, I spent all this me, not quite hiding it,
but almost ashamed of it. It’s not just internal but also socially that’s how we were meant to or made to be and feel. I know that’s a lot but that’s where you could place me and my kind of the journey.
Ellen van Neerven: And were the people you were hanging around at that me, what was that like?
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: So, I was both interconnected with other Aboriginal people, Bianca Beatson was in the same year as myself and there was a couple of others who didn’t quite complete the course, but we’re s ll in contact. I think one of them le halfway through the first year and he is a police officer, and I’m certain that even that experience of mee ng with the likes of me and Biancia who were like really ‘out there’, this person as a policing professional, I would hope that he would have picked up these social nuances about difference and diversity and hopefully bought that into the workplace. I don’t know if it was par cularly a crea ve workplace but at least socially these things rub off.
I also grew up in a house called ‘Prospect House’, which was donated to the Queensland Aids Council at the me, and it was to house vulnerable queer youth. So, I lived there a er I lived in a series of youth hostels, and I moved into there and it had this great community thing going on. That’s where I learnt about ac vism in our certain way, and about our cultural inheritance as queer people and Aboriginal people and music and thri stores, all of these places where culture is and it also had an impact.
Ellen van Neerven: It sounds like quite a me. If I can jump in. I think coming to QUT as a young student myself was also a bit of a turning point with everything kind of connec ng as well. I think, I was 17 and this was a different decade to the one that you described, I think maybe early 2008 I was first a student here. The Oodgeroo unit was immediately where I gravitated towards and it was also a place to be out, to be queer to be fabulous in a way that I wasn’t at school, and to find people. Of course, there are some people I’m no longer in contact with because years pass but had a great influence on me and that there are people that you are s ll in contact with who were around at the
me.
I remember being at the Oodgeroo unit being kind of terrified, ‘what is this university going to be about?’. But being around, par cularly some strong Aboriginal women that were working there at the
me, Paula, Annie and Mel and them taking me under their wing. We went to Minjerribah, Oodgeroo’s birthplace, a sort of cultural camp before university, I remember that really vividly. It was a space to hang out, I was on the Kelvin Grove campus, and I remember just mee ng students from all over Queensland but also, I think some of them had come from other places as well. I’m par cularly s ll close to Yasmin Smith who is from Rockhampton, and she was just down from Brisbane. I think this gives you perspec ve, I’ve lived here, I’ve lived in Brisbane all my life, my grandparents are both born in Beaudesert, which is an hour south of here, they both are on country, Mununjali country. They moved to Brisbane in the 1950’s and had my mum and her brothers and sisters, so I’ve always grown up here in southeast Queensland in the northern suburbs on Turrbal land and it gives you a certain perspec ve when you are mee ng people who come from all different places, and all have different stories to share. My girlfriend at the me, we were both, I think I started studying and then she started studying a year later, but I also had her support just to be around campus and also just to be part of queer events on campus as well. It was just a really nice me to sort of start to be more myself and be kind of, be more of in touch of who I was and be proud of that. I really remember those years fondly because, in the kind of iden ty perspec ve, but also, I think it was the beginning of working out what I wanted to do with my own wri ng.
I think of my wri ng, because I studied crea ve wri ng, I probably would have to go back and have a look, if I s ll have that wri ng at that me. I probably would not be pleased reading it, it’s like
anything I guess, gosh what was that about? I was just, that’s the part of learning, finding a voice in what you want to do. I mean, what was the sort of artwork that you were making at the me.?
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: Well, just going back to that. I reckon you’ll find, if you go back and read that stuff, the truth of that awkwardness is there, and its great really, that it wasn’t published. But now you could, of course, re read, re look at it, I’m sure you’ll find good there and it will land because it is you and its authen c, it’s these messy areas that are the most rich.
I haven’t read a lot of your work but I’m, but I’ve said what an incredible, the sec ons of your newest book that I’ve read, they are so nuanced and rich and full of this truth. I reckon there will be
something in that too, it’s great that it’s s ll not published, you’ve s ll got it, so I’m sure you can s ll do something with it.
Ellen van Neerven: We were cha ng the other day about costumes, and stuff, and what were you making?
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: At university me and also a bit a er too, I was like ‘oh nightclubs’, I was like, there’s a tribe of mine that I want to be in that. This isn’t about dissing the university but about dissing, it’s about where culture and art were at, at the me. I was making costumes, I was dressing myself up, I was pu ng sculptures on my body and going out clubbing. I didn’t realise there was such a thing as club queer culture. I didn’t know who Leigh Bowery was, either did the university, it wasn’t in the, not syllabus, syllabus like in the ter ary educa on, or it wasn’t in the readings and stuff. Again, luckily, I’ve got some photographs of that stuff, I don’t have a lot of the costumes le , but of course over me I can re‐insert myself back into something that’s already lived, so that’s really good.
If it wasn’t for these recent things, like that terrible plebiscite that we had to live through and there were casual es and these recent debates, there really is going to be, it’s a big s r up too. But these things, when you survive them, and you grow and also creates new space too. Importantly for me, is that this is the me and its me that’s been created around me, culturally, where my past self, who is s ll this person, can actually have the space to shine and be proud and have the work looked at cri cally and not just trivially. Even though of course I lean into the trivial too because it’s a mee ng point.
Ellen van Neerven: I think when we were cha ng the other day, if we could think about that me, university me and now, your exhibi on here. You were talking about it being a full circle moment for yourself, as that right?
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: It is in so far as it’s a type of stereo, and I like all types, including stereos, with that, I feel a bit like a homecoming queen in a sense. And not that I’m searching for everybody’s approval, I’m trying to just focus on the people that love me instead of trying to find love in places that you are never going to do it. But hey, you know, deep down we all want to be loved, we all want to be included, we all want to be validated. It does also feel like, personally, like a, it does have some valida on‐ness around it and it’s really sweet. I know it’s not just because I went to university here, I know the work is strong and I know all that. It does also feel like a home coming and, in a way, it sort of makes up and compensates for the stuff that wasn’t so good. It feels all worth it and I’m so grateful to be here and, also am grateful that I didn’t, because we have every reason to be angry with the world, I’m so glad that I didn’t lash out in such a way, and I did kind of internalise it. I’m so glad that I’m privileged that I have an outlet to slowly get it through and not just scream at people, because
we’ve all seen people that are so badly affected, understandably, our way is to be aggressive, and I think that people who do that never recover, never recovered from it. So, it makes me glad I’m an extroverted, introvert.
Ellen van Neerven: Having a crea ve expression, to have a way to speak, that is genera ve and is, I’m not going to use the word healing, but I think it can be overused, but something that is for, first and foremost for ourselves and as well as being for others around us and greater communi es, there is nothing quite like knowing yourself through a crea ve mode.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: I think you do that through your work, but it’s interes ng that idea about the, where the self/others because I think it’s quite evident, if you look at both of our work, I think, is that, yes there’s lots of self‐there but there is also community. Just because, the thing is, we work in o en isola on, community can perceive it’s all about themselves, no, no, no, it’s about everything. I also no ce in our ci es that we have both found ways to some mes be more extroverted in the
community, because you’ve also collated compila ons of sort of curatorial kind of roles. Some mes I also lead into those sorts of roles too, to A, bring people in more explicitly, it doesn’t mean that other people’s thoughts aren’t in what we’re doing.
Ellen van Neerven: Yeah, yeah absolutely. I think my work has always had this sort of dual, like individual wri ng as well as suppor ng, and cura ng and doing whatever I can to bring other writers along and to provide those pla orms and opportuni es for them, through publica ons and through public programs and stuff like that. So, I think that’s really a perfect balance as well also as an introverted person as well to also have some engagement, some collabora on with peers but also knowing when the me is right to go and kind of bury myself in my work.
This book itself, it took eight years to write, which I wasn’t do that the whole me. I was doing other things, but that was the span of me it takes from when you first get an idea to follow it through. I really relate to what you’re saying in terms of, its hands on, you have to be in a space some mes where you’re doing this by yourself. I think par cularly this book was taking so long, I mean, what is long? what is process? I think because other previous books maybe had been three‐ or four‐years max, and then this one was somehow taking twice as long, but of course it’s also a big book as well.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: With a lot of themes, a lot of themes.
Ellen van Neerven: A large sort of territory to get across and to also do right, to do it ethically and responsibly as possible. I was thinking, ‘oh my gosh, I just have to finish this dra ’, I could see that I had to just lock myself away and do heads down to sort of finish. I thought ‘oh my gosh’, I’m missing out on this me that I could be with other people, that was my thought process at the me. I thought I had to kind of get over this, I guess false idea that I was being selfish by really dedica ng myself to the work and just doing what I needed to do to get it done. I think I had all of these ideas of what that meant, but really when the book was launched in May this year and I had my family and friends there, and I was able to sort of say, well this is who it’s for really, and this is what it’s for.
Really that me where I had to be in my own head, that just seemed like small and nothing I should have been worried about. It’s interes ng how we can place so much pressure on ourselves to be, to do so many things at once and to always be everything to everyone. Where I just always knew just that my friends and family understood, I had to be a li le bit busier than usual and had to maybe miss a couple of community events or can’t go out with friends that night. At some point some mes you do also just you’re so in your head that it kind of feels hard to even have some conversa ons with
family. But I realise that they loved me no ma er what, so it was just my own warped expecta ons of who I was.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: I think a lot of us would have those sorts of feelings and thoughts and maybe realise that people feel pressure in all kinds of ways depending on, where you went to school, what area you grew up in, what their gender is, what these expecta ons are. A lot of us come from these, probably all of us in certain ways, come from these backgrounds, once you’re doing something that’s slightly outside of your usual, ‘oh so you think you’re be er than us?’ I know of people who have had to change their accent over me to try and get into spaces and there is that double edge. So, for maybe some of us crea ves who really think a lot of that stuff through, it can be a bit torturous. I’m going to use that word, its torturous some mes, because we are mindful of all these thoughts and you can’t control everybody’s thoughts, but at least again, when we labour over all these things, when we take six or eight years part‐ me to get to, it’s all that stuff, it’s considered along the way. I think the work is richer for it. So even though it can be horrible to have these kind of, to overthink all this stuff all the me, it is worth it, not that I’m saying I want to struggle, but I want to be adorned.
We are going on this wonderful journey now, but in our early days, what did you do when you finished university? I know that you were in Brisbane, but you’ve also travelled, and you’ve been clearly working very hard the whole me.
When I was finished, I was here a few more years, which was great but then I’d skipped, then I moved to interstate, just at the right me for me, even though in hindsight Brisbane grew into this incredible place, double the popula on than what it was when I le it and is slowing progressing in certain ways, excep onally well. I soon got a job as the Execu ves Officer of Reconcilia on in South Australia and that’s probably, I think even though I was a bit green, I had some great mentors and including some Aboriginal elders and non‐Aboriginal allies too. That really enabled me to, as Joni Mitchell says, ‘see both sides now’, you know to look at mul ple sides and be ok with mul ple sides. Learn forgiveness, learn to, if someone gets a name wrong or a gender pronoun wrong, that you can’t discount those people as enemies because people are just like we are, people are more complex than that. If people want to hurt you, they’ll find a way outside that, I’ve sort of realised that by doing that role, I know you’re supposed to, but in a sense, it was an opportunity for my own personal development. That I also realised that was a good way to look at my own complica ons of my own life, including most of the things that were not my fault and that were natural, but somehow society has made it really difficult for you. But yeah, it helped me start to deal with all of that and be forgiving of people.
Ellen van Neerven: Forgiveness, yeah cool. Two things from there. So you’ve been in South Australia for how many years now?
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: Twenty‐three.
Ellen van Neerven: I wanted to ask, how, what’s something about Brisbane that you s ll have now as a South Australian and also, we talk about learning, we talk about ins tu ons, we talk about being here at QUT and we were talking about what might have been happening in our lives there and what we were drawn too. But, how much of that learning con nued a er university.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: I think for me the learning took a while to catch on. I did do mul ple degrees, one a er the next, in part because I didn’t wan to have to go on the ‘Dole’ and looking for work and it seemed easier at the me to get a small amount of money, a li le bit of support to go and study. I must say the educa on degree I was doing; my heart wasn’t in it at all. It was also a me when I was trying to deal with my own iden ty and being terrified of being around young people or children.
Because you know I was brought up in Queensland which I know was a fall down from say Anita Bryant and all that stuff in the U.S., that I was this monster. I was terrified to be around kids, and I’d go into the classroom on ‘prac’, and I had this lazy eye too, so, and all of it was just too much. But
anyway, what I even learnt from that was, I did my psychology bit and all of that, but I learnt I did that
‘saving face’, it took me a few years but there the things I leant from it.
I went through university super young; I wasn’t a great theorist, I was bright but, not that I felt stupid but I wasn’t a high achiever, but it all caught up later on, it just took a while. I do find I really, really, love it here now, it’s such a dilemma, I partly want to come back, but I am fine, and I have a beau ful partner and some family there that I really love. So, I’m just thinking its ok, and it’s also necessary that I’m in more than one place, so I’m going to keep Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide as my Australian home and have presence in all three, and have my world like that (arms open) and not so much like that (hands clasped shut).
Ellen van Neerven: Yes absolutely, I think If I could just jump onto, you were talking about ‘shame’.
This is going to kind of go from..
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: Well, that’s good because I didn’t quiet use the ques ons, because now I’m taking up all the oxygen in the room.
Ellen van Neerven: No, no, I could listen to you all day. I think I’ll just jump in and talk about ‘shame’, because you made me think about where I was. We are talking about us as 17‐year‐olds, QUT and where we are now. In some ways it feels like, so much has happened, but like you said we are also s ll the same person in many ways. I’m going to bring in sport into the discussion because, my book is about sport and also if I think about it, I was playing a lot of sport at the me as well when I was a student. That was really a big part of my life, sport, wri ng, figuring out who I was.
I think in my book I talk about, its both from a personal perspec ve but then it’s also about moving out and looking at the bigger picture. So, I talk about how sport made me feel as both a welcome space and also as an unwelcome space, it had that duality about it. One of the things that I grew up hearing as a young person in the 90’s, which was, obviously a more tolerant environment compared to a couple of decades before but s ll a very, as well all would know, s ll a homophobic environment and a racist space and also a misogynist space as well. One of the things I grew up hearing was, because I played soccer, was that soccer was full of lesbians as a derogatory sort of term.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: Not a fact but a derogatory term.
Ellen van Neerven: I think being about 11, 12 and having this, sort of people defining you before you’ve even had a chance to define yourself and to do so in such nega ve terms. It really created this like dual thing, of like I just really, really kind of felt a bit like sinking sand and so there was this
‘shame’ about being a queer person in sport and also being in a site that’s so specific to the body, you’ve got changing rooms and everything and you’re thinking, as a person who’s sort of coming into their iden ty, ‘should I be here?’. People are thinking, it sort of turned into this kind of indirect violence but also turned into an overt violence where I was being sort of being a acked for who I was. Also, into that interdisciplinary, intersec onal way, it was also a site where I was, there were all the sort of terms, the derogatory terms for being who I was and as an Aboriginal person as well. At the start of compe on, there was so much going on, so that’s what I talk about in the book. I talk about, this is my personal experience and then all the stuff about sport, all the stuff that I love and all the stuff that I’m uncomfortable about and then this is what it’s like on a kind of, this is what was happening at the me, history, poli cal, everything.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: I love the desire aspects of it, and I don’t know so much as like the desire ‘she’s cute’, but the desire to be included, desire to not have these kind of ways of talking about things, desire for achievement for compe on for, for social change. I found the desire is the leading thread for me, loved it.
Ellen van Neerven: Your absolutely right, there’s mul ple forms of desires in this book but it sort of starts with me by saying ‘I want to play, I want to be included, I wanted to do this.’, and that’s throughout this whole journey of wan ng.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: and its relatable.
Ellen van Neerven: Yeah, absolutely. I think when we were talking earlier, we were sort of saying, because you have a link with the beau ful game.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: Yes, I’m a newbie to it. Talking about the locker room stuff and probably go back to school, and adolescence is hard anyway, sexuality wise and iden ty of course for everybody in various ways. For me I remembered so vividly that par cularly with men’s teams sports, more o en than not, the physical educa on teacher would pick up the boy with the most obvious human development, I mean, you know, with the pubic hair and all of that stuff. He then would ins l this homophobia as a way to mo vate the group. Being a queer person or someone who’s kind of ques oning and working things out, being in that space was hideous. As a result, as a silver lining, then I would, maybe wouldn’t have become an ar st, but if it wasn’t for that.
But then more recently, about a year and a half ago I was approached by Adelaide United to put in an exhibi on for their captain’s arm bands. I asked a friend, a young ar st to collaborate with me, two genera ons. It’s a really simple design that’s an extension of the pride colours and the football imagery sort of fla en out, like you cut a piece of the football out and fla ened it. Since then, all of the captains of the A‐League men’s and women’s, certainly all women from A‐League Australian and New Zealand and Sam Kerr as well wearing it. Now I go to the football, and I actually really love it and I thought I’m not going to allow my past to define a future. We draw from the past, always, but I’m not going to allow that to define my future. I also thought for other people, it’s a way of, ever so subtly but trying to deal with other people that have got that sort of situa on.
I know there is a lot, I have friends that s ll can’t find all this alphabet soup and having all this spotlight on us, it’s too much, there so used to being in the shadows, and understand that, and are s ll really put out by ‘I’m free’ characters and all of that. So, for me the work around that arm band was really about crea ng all of this extra text, all ready to just in case it got ugly. My advice to the football associa on was, put them out slowly because those of us who need to see it will see it. To test that out, I went to a red army, I was part of the red army once, I was ligh ng up the flares and the whole lot, really leaned into my western suburbs of Sydney early upbringing, really did, it was fes ve.
I realised that most of the people there didn’t know what the band was, didn’t register to them, in the very same way that that siren that I now hear, which is different to the ALF siren, which is
probably wri en, that sound, the soccer has its own siren too and now I register it and I know straight away, the pleasure notes come up and I know its soccer, where before it was absent to me. So it’s a nice insight into the way that we see and view and experience the world, only certain bits that we grapple onto, but of course most of it is white noise, so it was also a lovely reminder to how our senses work.
Ellen van Neerven: Beau ful, so we have eight minutes, and we definitely are open to having ques ons from the audience. Absolutely could be about anything we discussed or specific ques ons about this beau ful exhibi on.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: Or this beau ful book, or this beau ful person (poin ng to Ellen).
Ellen van Neerven: Or this one (poin ng to Troy). But did you want to say anything else while people are thinking about their ques ons.
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: No, I’m happy for someone to start, a comment or ques on or a revela on.
Nicole Clark: I’ve popped in because we should have sort this out beforehand, but people online if you’ve got ques ons, people online will be sending some ques ons and you’ve got your lovely selves in the audience.
Audience member 1: I’m just so impressed that you started to study at a very young age, because I had absolutely no idea what my direc on was or who I was or where I was going at that me. What actually inspired you to follow the educa on path in the first instance.
Ellen van Neerven: That’s a very good ques on, do you want to start.?
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: I don’t think I had any other choice, and I’ll just leave it at that I think for me, that might be more telling, I had no other choice. I did ini ally get into music, music was kind of my thing and I decided at the last minute, no, I felt that music I’d have to learn about somebody else’s work too much to do my own. So visual arts I thought I could just, again I was really young, i just thought that this is what I’d do. Quite recently I caught up my art teacher from over thirty years ago from high school just to say, thankyou for pu ng up these li le queues here and changing my life which I more recently co oned onto. A compliment is a compliment and she’s gorgeous and will remain friends now, and that love for each other. That’s a long ques on for a long answer.
Ellen van Neerven: I had a beau ful year one teacher, that’s when I wrote my first story. I had some learning difficul es when I was younger, and I had this teacher that paid a lot of a en on to me when I needed it. She encouraged me to write my first story in grade one, I wrote a li le story about my family, and I rushed home to my mum and said, ‘I want to be a writer’. I’m really grateful that I found that so young in life because that was a way of coping as well, was to be in my own li le world and create stories and stuff my mum is a very crea ve person. When I was in high school I either wanted to do something with wri ng or sport. I was the first person in my family to go to university, I really saw university as being an op on to sort of get myself out of what was a very homophobic
environment, and sort of be somewhere, and so I chose to study crea ve wri ng and I’m glad I did.
My mum was like, ‘you know will you be able to get a job?’ I’m glad that I followed that passion instead of going for something that might have been more of a safer op on. Obviously, it worked out for me to follow that. Thanks for your ques on.
Audience member 2: Thank you both very much. You both touched on safe spaces, I just wanted to see what your sort of your respec ve opinions are about, how you’ve seen, if you’ve seen safe spaces change over me? And are we missing any?
Troy‐Anthony Baylis: I think were always going to unfortunately miss people in so far even in terms of iden es that we share, obviously never know what’s going on for a person by looking at them or how they present. But I do think that its more than remarkable and it’s thrilling really, that society is trying and doing so much more. The changes just in queer spaces alone in this university and see
there is a queer alumni groups, there’s queer stuff there’s queer students and there is some rela onship across universi es, but of course this university has its own thing.
I think that it’s remarkable and I’m also loving that its part of a Brisbane and Australian experience too. Of course, I’m now seeing people of all different shapes, sizes, na onali es, backgrounds in these spaces as well, they are not predominantly for, not only for, but being seen as for being one kind of person either. Some mes you hear, various ways, there have been spaces, that have their own li le regula ons around them too. On the whole, I kind of get it, its all moving forward and it’s a great thing, I can’t think of any par cular new spaces or ways that spaces should be broadened at this stage. As long as they make a conscious effort to tap into overseas and various other groups because there’s huge amounts of people in those communi es too, they just miss out, whether it’s for family reasons or cultural reasons. They are o en not in these other areas, there’s o en not enough
crossover, but the popula on is there, we just need to keep working out ways to bring people into the fold.
Ellen van Neerven: Yeah, I think it’s a great ques on and I think we can. Obviously, spaces need to be as inclusive as possible across every intersec on. If I reflect on, where I was, while I was at university, I was accessing two spaces, I was accessing queer spaces and I was accessing the Oodgeroo unit which is specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff. I found the Oodgeroo unit being a very
inclusive space for me being a queer person. I did find the queer spaces to be quite white and maybe less inclusive to, and that can happen, less inclusive to people that are from First Na ons or culturally diverse backgrounds. I remember hanging out with Chris ans and Trans students and I think it being a really great me for myself. But the one thing I do remember is being able to access these beau ful communi es as a student outside of my study but then being within my study and at it being the only Aboriginal student within my discipline and that whole thing in itself and having to sort of
communicate to my non‐Indigenous peers about what I wanted to do. I think, just some mes feeling like it wasn’t necessarily worth it to have to constantly educate people around me. I find it really interes ng how that can kind of happen and how cri cal it is to have each discipline to have inclusivity whether it’s in course content but also just in the way that students, cause students are going to make work about their life, or they are going to be doing things they are passionate about, it doesn’t ma er what discipline that is, but that those to be spaces where inclusive spaces in that regard.
Thanks for your ques on, that’s a great ques on.
Nicole Clark: Unfortunately, we are out of me, we could listen to you both all day. Thank you so much. I just wanted to apologise to the people online, I know there will be ques ons there and I know there will be more ques ons from the audience here, but we have hit our me. I want to say thank you so much to both of you, how lucky were we to hear you both in this beau ful se ng. Thank you for your generosity, thank you for, that was just a gorgeous conversa on and I know it resonated with me and I’m sure it did with other people as well. This is just a ny li le something. Please give them both a round of applause.
