South Australians have long used their hands, hearts, and minds to make things both practical and beautiful. In this Talking History, we meet some sensational South Australian artists and artisans who practice ‘hands-on history’ by running a shuttle through a loom, transforming liquid metal, or simply sharing stories of visionaries.

Date: 12 August 2025
Time: 5:30pm to 8:00pm
Address: Hetzel Lecture Theatre, State Library of South Australia
cnr North Tce and Kintore Ave, ADELAIDE SA 5000

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Presented in partnership with the State Library of South Australia
This Talking History event is part of the 2025 SALA Festival.

Image:
Emerita Professor Fay Gale AO. 1932 – 2008, University of Adelaide 2025
Sculptor: Meliesa Judge, Liquid Metal Studios
Photo: Kate Paneros

Speakers

Alison Giles has a Bachelor of Arts in Aboriginal and Intercultural Studies, a Post Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education specialising in Aboriginal Studies and English.  Alison worked in the Catholic education sector as an Aboriginal specialist teacher for twenty years before returning to study and receiving her Masters in Curatorial and Museum studies here at the University of Adelaide in 2022.  She is now in the second year of her PhD candidature. 

Alison has also been a life-long craftsperson. For the past eight years she has been working with a Sydney-based master weaver. These two aspects of Alison’s life, her Aboriginal Studies and craft, come together in her PhD research topic which explores the impact of missionaries on the traditional crafts of Aboriginal women in remote Australia between 1920 and 1960. 

PHD title: Woven Stories: Missionary influences on First Nation women’s craft practices 1920-1960 

Dr Louise Bird is the Principal Heritage Assessment Officer at Heritage South Australia, Department for Environment and Water, where she leads a team comprising historians and a palaeontologist. She is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at UniSA Creative. Louise is a historian with twenty-five years’ experience researching and writing about South Australian history, with a particular focus on architecture, designed landscapes and the built environment. 

Meliesa Judge is a figurative sculptor and a bronze worker. Working at life scale in the public arena, her sculpture is galvanised by social justice issues. Strong female leaders from history animate her work. The sculptures are anchored in the ethereal beauty of the human form, the nuance of faces, the subtlety of movement and posture. Meliesa uses the human figure as a tool of communication for complex ideas and narratives. 

Her first life sized figure was Mary Ward for the eight Loreto schools in Australia. 400 years ago Mary was a lone feminist voice in the Catholic church. She was excommunicated for her belief that if you educate women you will change the world. Subsequent life sized sculptures include Catherine McAuley and St Elizabeth Seton amongst others. 

The sculpture of Professor Fay Gale for the University of Adelaide was unveiled for IWD 2025. It  is the first sculpture of a woman in the University’s 150 years. Fay was a powerful advocate for First Nations rights and for gender equality. Meliesa shares her life and her studio with sculptor Will Kuiper. 

In July, we turn on our torches and peer into the past. What makes practices like surfing or gaming so… ‘subterranean’? And how do they become mainstream whilst keeping their ‘edge’? Find out about some of the many surprising subcultures that have shaped South Australia.

Date: 15 July 2025
Time: 5:30pm to 8:00pm
Address: Hetzel Lecture Theatre, State Library of South Australia
cnr North Tce and Kintore Ave, ADELAIDE SA 5000

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The Talking History program is delivered in partnership with the State Library of South Australia.

Speakers:

Dr. Dianne Rodger is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide and a long-time Hip Hop fan! She is an anthropologist who researches popular music, digital media, and the youth sector – primarily through a long-term commitment to studying Hip Hop culture in Australia. She is author of the book The Calling (2023) about Adelaide group the Hilltop Hoods and co-editor of the first edited book to explore Hip Hop in Australia (Representing Hip Hop Histories, Politics and Practices in Australia, 2024). She is currently leading an archival Hip Hop project funded by the History Trust of South Australia. 

Author and community historian Liz Harfull is passionate about telling the stories of the extraordinary everyday people who make up our communities. She has written ten books, including an acclaimed history of Robe – home to one of the oldest continuously held surfing competitions in the world. To mark the event’s 50th anniversary, in 2018 she published Finding Steve’s Place which captures the life and memories of its founder, local surfing legend Steve Woolston. Not a surfer herself, Liz became fascinated with his adventures after riding his first wave at Moana in the 1960s and the fascinating characters he met along the way. 

Tyson Hopprich is a multidisciplinary creative, accessibility advocate, and long-time video game enthusiast based in Adelaide, Australia. As a neurodivergent and physically disabled individual, Tyson’s work champions inclusive play, innovation, and community building across music, digital arts, and gaming culture. Over the past 29 years, Tyson (also known during his music career as DJ TR!P) has performed internationally at major festivals and venues, including MONA FOMA, DARK MOFO, WOMADelaide, Adelaide Festival (Barrio), Brisbane Powerhouse, Sydney Opera House, New Victory Theater on Broadway (New York), and Adelaide’s NYE Fireworks celebrations. Alongside his music career, Tyson has consistently explored the creative potential of video games as cultural artifacts, performance mediums, and tools for accessible expression and created Ultracade Live, Adelaide’s long-running retro gaming club night.

Tickets

The Talking History program is delivered in partnership with the State Library of South Australia.

Speakers

Edoardo Crismani is a Filmmaker who delivers stunning Film and Video content with innate cultural sensitivity. A proud Wiradjuri man, Edoardo combines his passion for filmmaking with his versatile creativity to provide a voice for the First Nations people of Australia.

Lise Windsor is a retired public servant with a passion for South Australian history and a love of the theatre. In 2023 she joined the Board of the Adelaide Repertory Theatre Company and took up the role of Treasurer. Lise accidentally fell into the job of ‘honorary historian’ for the Rep when she discovered the treasure trove of memorabilia dating back to 1908  crammed into the mini library upstairs at the Arts Theatre – the home of the Rep. She is now on a mission to make sure the collection is properly catalogued, preserved and shared with all South Australians. 

Peter Beaglehole writes plays, and performs autobiographical work. In 2024 he received the Adelaide Festival Centres inSPACE Award for best theatre for his solo performance The Tumour Show. In 2022 he received the Jill Blewett Playwright’s Award for his performance text Calendar Days, which went onto development as part of Vitalstatistix’s Adhocracy.  He researches the history and industrial experiences of stand-up comedians in Australia, and also researches Australian theatre history through the field of Memory Studies, and has published a monograph: Dorothy Hewett’s Drama, Memory and Australian Theatre.  

Thursday, 1 May 2025
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Drill Hall, Torrens Parade Ground, Victoria Drive, Adelaide SA 5000

‘Shared History of Penang and Adelaide’ presented by Dr Kee Beng Ooi

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Presented by National Trust of South Australia, History Trust of South Australia, & Ayers House Function Centre

Presentation time: Monday, 12 May 2025, 6:o0pm
Presentation duration: 90 mins

Image: Dr Kee Beng Ooi, 2024, Don Dunstan Foundation

SESSION 6

‘What does the Proclamation painting tell us about becoming South Australian?’ presented by Susan Marsden, AM, BA (Hons), PhD, MPHA

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1836 culminated in the arrival by ship in South Australia of the first official settlers and the Governor’s first proclamation of government and of the rights of the Aborigines at Holdfast Bay on 28 December 1836. The event marked formal British settlement/annexation of the new Province of South Australia. Charles Hill’s celebrated large historical painting, titled, The Proclamation of South Australia 1836, 1857/1876, depicts the people at this first proclamation ceremony. There are dozens of women, men and children; Kaurna and British; official, military and civilian. They are all – both First People and second – at the beginning of becoming South Australian, and making ‘South Australia’. Many of the participants and observers are named in a key by the artist.

I’ve completed an illustrated book (in press, Wakefield Press) titled Mr Hill’s History Painting. I’ll speak about my exploration of these first South Australians in the book,  framed around Hill’s painting, and now on display at Government House. The painting provides a starting point, narrative and structure for the book, that provides a fresh look at the best-known event in South Australia’s history in its global context of mass migration, colonial settlement and first contact between Aboriginal and European people. This book connects the picture, the people, the proclamation and the place depicted in the painting in developing a story about the founding of a free British province on the far side of the world.

I address these simple but compelling questions: who are the people in the painting? Why are they there? Where did they come from, what were their journeys, and what happened to them after 1836? The painting is unusual in such nineteenth century images in depicting this as a family event with women and children, including amongst the Aboriginal observers. Life history and family history are also used to illuminate and explore the large theme of a ‘European diaspora’, and the lives of the men, women and children depicted in the painting, their prior British or Aboriginal lives, and migrations.

Many of them have descendants still in SA today, and I draw on their findings as well, and bring the story of the people at the proclamation through successive ceremonies at the Old Gum Tree.

Presentation time: Thursday, 15 May 2025, 6:30 pm
Presentation duration: 60-90 minutes

Image: Charles Hill, The Proclamation of South Australia 1836, c 1856-76, oil on canvas. Art Gallery of South Australia, 0.893

SESSION 3

‘Life in a Limestone Land: Combining the Stories of Mount Gambier Sinkholes into a Sinkhole Heritage Trail’ by Ian Lewis, Heritage SA

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Ian will tell the exciting story of South Australia’s Limestone Coast landscape which has been shaped by ancient sea floors, sand dune ranges from a dozen Ice Ages, caves, sinkholes, volcanoes and vast rainwater aquifers. These have profoundly influenced the activities of the life forms and human occupation by the Buganditj people and European settlement of the land. A number of these natural features are State Heritage sites and activity is occurring to link the different stories for each into a Sinkhole Heritage Trail as a regional attraction – the only place in Australia where such features exist.

Ian D Lewis grew up in Mount Gambier and became a cave explorer and pioneer cave diver here. He works as a Hydrogeologist for the SA Department for Environment and Water. He has published several books on South

Presentation time: Thursday 8 May 2025, 6.30 pm
Presentation duration: 60 minutes

Image: ‘Little Blue Lake, Mount Schank, South Australia’ photographer Ockert Le Roux.

SESSION 2:

‘APRON-SORROW / SOVEREIGN-TEA: Aboriginal Women’s Domestic Service Stories in South Australia’ presented by Natalie Harkin

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APRON-SORROW / SOVEREIGN-TEA evokes an embodied reckoning with Aboriginal women’s domestic labour and servitude drawing from oral history and the State’s official record. It explores the complexity of Aboriginal women’s experiences and survival strategies, and intergenerational stories that span loss, love, sorrow, solidarity, resistance, and refusal.

This work is an archival-poetic collaboration with Aboriginal women, curated to produce a series of video-projections, a tryptic of leadlight windows, and twelve personal Memory Stories on domestic servitude unique to South Australia. It is the work of active honouring to generate collective recognition and remembrance of unrecognised Aboriginal women’s labour contributions to this state; a means to maintain past lives in the present and contribute new ways to negotiate official histories of erasure and deficit narratives of our lives. It is also an invitation to lean in close and bear witness, not only to the oppressive racialised, gendered assimilation-based policies of state, but to the individual and collective power, sorrow, rage and resilience of Aboriginal women and above all, enduring love.

APRON-SORROW / SOVEREIGN-TEA is also an archival-poetic interrogation of the state’s colonial archive as a critical site of memory, conservation, preservation and erasure that continues to resonate as a contemporary repository of social meaning. The State Aboriginal Records’ ‘Domestic Service’ files reveal the unfolding rationale for interdependent policies of child-removal, institutionalisation and domestic training as important context to the burgeoning Aboriginal domestic service workforce into the twentieth century. Records reveal critical voices from Protectors and mission superintendents, white employers, the parents, girls and women themselves placed into training or service. These records trigger questions about surveillance, representation and agency. They are deeply confronting and at the same time, ripe for critique, explication and response.

Presentation time: Wednesday 7 May 2025, 6:30 pm
Presentation duration: 40-45 minutes

2025 Book: www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product/apron-sorrow-sovereign-tea/
2021 Exhibition: https://vitalstatistix.com.au/projects/apron-sorrow-sovereign-tea/

Image: Natalie Harkin with Unbound Collective, video still, Days of Our Lives, 2021, single channel video, Frankie Films videography, Jessica Wallace editor/sound director.

SESSION 11

‘For the People: the Evolution of Adelaide’s North Terrace Cultural Institutions’ presented by Brian Samuels

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Brian Samuels’ passions for State and local history emerged around 1970. He was one of the founders of the Historical Society of SA and a founding member of and first Honorary Historian to the Port Adelaide Historical Society. He spent 12 years with the History Trust of SA, ultimately becoming Director of the State History Centre, and 19 as Principal Heritage Officer with Heritage SA, retiring in July 2011.

Knowledge of local history brings the past to life by enabling you to read the history in your surroundings. It thereby enriches your everyday life and helps build a sense of belonging. In addition, understanding the forces that have shaped a community gives you a better chance of intelligently guiding it into the future. His presentation will focus on State history through the prism of North Terrace.

Presentation time: Wednesday, 28 May 2025, 6:30 pm
Presentation duration: 40-45 minutes

Please note: tickets include x2 presentations by Brian Samuels and Greg Mackie OAM.

Image: North Terrace, Adelaide showing the National War Memorial, South Australian Institute, Public Library, Museum, Art Gallery, SLSA B 60354/63