Image: video still from Refugium - A speculative climate futures film
THE CENTRE FOR REWORLDING | Jen Rae & Claire G. Coleman
REFUGIUM SCREENING (2021)
FRI 28 JUN 1.00PM - 3.00PM
FILM DURATION: 26 mins, followed by Q&A
TICKETS: $10
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18+ Contains distressing themes, contains profanity and discussing the climate emergency, apocalypse, euthanasia, gender violence, suicide and filicide, and might be distressing. While the film discusses such difficult themes, the artists view the work as hopeful – a ’blunt force to break the inertia of inaction on climate’ by centring intergenerational justice and Indigenous knowledge systems.
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Closed captioned and Auslan interpretation version available upon request.
Platform Arts is wheelchair-accessible via our Gheringhap St entrance. Unlocked, accessible bathrooms are available on both ground and first floors.
For accessibility enquiries, please contact us at hello@platformarts.org.au
REFUGIUM (2021) is an award-winning short film of speculative fiction, by Jen Rae (Scottish-Métis) and Claire G. Coleman (Wirlomin Noongar). Centred on First Nations knowledge and protocols, Refugium hacks time and compounding existential crises, delves into moral dilemmas of life and death and hones in on child-centred trauma prevention and intergenerational justice in the coming collapse.
Commissioned by Arts House for ‘Refuge: 2021’.
Winner, Incinerator Art Award for Social Change (2021)
Selected for Melbourne Now 2023 part of the NGV X Recess: Artist Film Program
REFUGIUM begins with Claire in 2042, at age 68, in an undisclosed bunker attempting to log into the BILYA portal in a futile effort to warn other Reworlders about a raid. Claire is the sentinel of the Centre for Reworlding, the last person standing, per se. Everyone has dispersed and she is alone. She begins a nihilistic spiral, halfway believing that all efforts at Reworlding were for nothing. “We failed,” she says, and attempts to communicate with those in 2021 to save themselves and ditch Reworlding. For the sake of future generations, Jen’s great-granddaughter, Ellis, is tasked in 2121 with intercepting Claire’s transmission, and a dialogue ensues. Difficult questions are answered.
Acknowledgement of Country
REFUGIUM was created on the unceded lands of the Wurrundjeri Peoples of the Kulin Nations. The Centre for Reworlding pays our deepest respects to their Ancestors and Elders past and present, and acknowledge their enduring legacy of care for Country so we may enjoy the stars, drink from the waters and continue to learn from the land. We are committed to strengthening relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples for the benefit of future generations to thrive in restored ecosystems.
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The Centre for Reworlding (C∞R) – a collective of Indigenous, people of colour, settler and LGBTIQA2S+ artists, scientists, thinkers and doers with a track record of collaboratively working at the intersections of art, the climate emergency leadership, speculative futures and disaster resilience. C∞R aims to bolster inclusive cross-sectoral collaboration and creative leadership in climate emergency response and action including prioritising the mainstream integration of arts and culture in national climate emergency discourses, policy frameworks and tertiary education. Their growing body of critical work, informed by First Nations knowledge systems and protocols subverts conventional platforms for engagement in the climate emergency. www.centreforreworlding.com
Jen Rae (PhD) is an award-winning artist and researcher of Canadian Scottish-Métis (Indigenous) descent living on unceded Djaara Country (Castlemaine) Australia. She is recognised for her practice and expertise situated at the intersections of art, speculative futures and climate emergency disaster adaptation + resilience – predominantly articulated through transdisciplinary collaborations, multi-platform projects, community alliances and public pedagogies. Most noteworthy was her role as a core artist of Arts House’s prescient REFUGE project (2016-2022) - where artists, emergency service providers and communities worked together to rehearse climate-related emergencies exploring the impact of creativity in disaster preparedness. In 2022, Jen co-designed and facilitated the City of Melbourne’s emergency drill exercise and was a keynote speaker at the 2022 National Summit: From Risk to Resilience – an event informing the national framework on disaster risk reduction and resilience. She is a Co-founder and the Creative Research Lead at the Centre for Reworlding, a member of the National Task Force for Creative Recovery, and was awarded a prestigious 2023 Creative Australia Fellowship for Emerging and Experimental Art. In 2024, Jen was awarded Australian National University’s H.C. Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship and the 2024/25 University of Wisconsin’s International Visiting Artist Residency. www.jenraeis.com
Claire G. Coleman is a Noongar woman whose ancestral country is on the south coast of Western Australia. She was born in Boorloo (Perth) and is currently based in Naarm. Her debut novel Terra Nullius [2017], published in Australia and in the US, won a Norma K. Hemming Award and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and an Aurealis Award. Her second novel is The Old Lie [2019], followed by Lies, Damn Lies [2021] unpacks the damages of colonisation, and her new book Enclave was released in July 2022. Her essays, poetry, short fiction, and art criticism has been published in the Saturday Paper, Guardian, Spectrum, Meanjin, Griffith Review and many others. Claire is a Co-founder and Lead Writer at the Centre for Reworlding and is currently working on a commissioned play for the Malthouse Theatre. www.clairegcoleman.com
