Aseel Tayah

Nevo Zisin

As a practising jewish person, Nevo shares how being assigned female and zionist at birth has impacted their journey towards transness and anti-zionism. In this wide-ranging conversation, Nevo interweaves the migration route of monarch butterflies, trans divinity, weaponised trauma, and living on stolen land to contemplate the multi-generational pathway to liberation. Nevo Zisin is Ashkenazi Jewish from Poland, Russia & France and has lived in and around Wurundjeri & Bunurong Lands their entire life. They are a creative educator on trans possibilities, and facilitate workshops in schools and workplaces. Nevo is award-winning author of Finding Nevo (2017), a memoir on gender transition and The Pronoun Lowdown (2021), a guidebook on all things related to pronouns. Their work explores queerness, collective healing and liberation.

Anjali Sharma

Shaped by her experiences growing up in India, Anjali reflects on the disproportionate impacts of climate change on young people and communities of colour around the world. Refusing to be intimidated by the impenetrable walls of Parliament House, Anjali transforms her anxiety about the future into a determination to bring climate justice to the fore. At 16, Anjali Sharma became the lead litigant of a class action legal case against the Environment Minister arguing that the Government owes all young people a duty of care to protect them from the impacts of climate change. In 2021, she was successful, but following an appeal from the Minister, this ruling was overturned. Anjali continues the campaign, calling to have this duty legislated through Federal Parliament.

Aseel Tayah

Encapsulated in the Bukjeh, the sack of belongings people take when they must flee from their home, Aseel describes the emotions, smells, memories, and songs that return her to homeland Palestine and drive her fight for liberation through art and storytelling. Aseel Tayah is a Palestinian artist, creative director and cultural advocate who leans into the power of storytelling to create pathways towards liberation and humanity for displaced peoples. Her practice is embedded in community and is often highly responsive to contemporary global issues. Her signature project, Bukjeh, began as a one-off weekend event in 2018 and has grown into a significant collective of culturally diverse artists from refugee communities presenting public events, school workshops, and programs across Australia.

Debbie Kilroy

Drawing on personal experiences from her time in prison, Debbie highlights the role of class, state violence and racialised capitalism in the creation and perpetuation of the prison-industrial complex. She discusses the strengths of transformative justice in addressing harm, accountability and repair at a community level to liberate our world from carceral logics. Debbie Kilroy OAM is one of Australia’s leading advocates for protecting the human rights of women and children through decarceration – the process of moving away from using prisons and other systems of social control in response to crime and social issues. Debbie’s passion for justice is the result of her personal experience of the criminal (in)justice system and an unwavering belief that prison represents a failure of justice. Debbie completed a degree in Social Work inside prison. Since then, she has become a qualified Gestalt Therapist and Legal Practitioner, and has completed a Graduate Diploma of Forensic Mental Health.

Alexis Wright

As Earth retaliates against the shattering of native ecosystems and ancient lifeways, acclaimed Waanyi author Alexis Wright turns inward to the dwelling place of ancestral story. From here, she considers how her culture has responded to ongoing invasion—and offers ways to bear witness to the creation of a post-apocalyptic world. Alexis draws regeneration lessons from the cycles of the moon in a sacred song cycle from East Arnhem Land. Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation from the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria in Australia. She is the author of the novels The Swan Book, Carpentaria, and most recently Praiseworthy winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and the Stella Prize. Alexis Wright’s recording kindly supplied by Emergence Magazine.