10am–6.30pm
This full-day program, Actions & Alliances, invites participants into a dynamic set of workshops, walkshops, and creative explorations that address the urgent ecological challenges of our time through experimental and collective practices. Grounded in the theme of climate-aware methodologies, the day offers opportunities to explore how art can inspire new ways of thinking, feeling, and responding to planetary instability.
The morning begins with Jo Pollitt’s workshop, which uses dancerly and writerly practices to cultivate sensitivity and improvisational attention—skills essential for navigating the unpredictability of our climate. Participants will engage in haptic “weather-charting” exercises to embody relational ways of responding to ecological pressures. Simultaneously, the Currents watershop, led by Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris and Lleah Smith, delves into the life-sustaining and contested dimensions of water, blending intimate, hands-on activities with theoretical insights from the Hydrocene; the Age of Water. Meanwhile, Anastasia Murney’s Tarot Reading for Planetary Survival introduces a contemplative, affective practice for confronting the complexities of climate change, using Tarot to weave collective stories and open new pathways for emotional and social engagement.
In the afternoon, Murney’s Tarot Reading for Planetary Survival continues with a second session, while Clare Milledge’s Succulent Friends workshop fosters an appreciation for native plant species often overlooked in favour of introduced varieties, finding methods to reconnect with local ecologies. Courtney Pedersen and Charles Robb’s walkshop invites participants to reimagine institutional structures by working with found materials, emphasising the value of tactile exploration and speculative thinking.
The day culminates in a reflective session to crowdsource actionable insights toward climate-aware practices, followed by a live performance by Alicia Frankovich that reimagines human and non-human relationships. Through its emphasis on experimentation, collaboration, and embodied learning, this program underscores the vital role of art in fostering resilience, creativity, and connection in the face of ecological uncertainty.
Bookings are essential for this program.
SCHEDULE
10.00 – 10.30am
Registration and Introduction, morning tea with tea/coffee
10.30am – 12.00pm Workshop
Jo Pollitt, Weathering under pressure; scores and dancerly practices for unstable times. Meet in ACCA foyer
10.30am – 12.00pm Watershop
Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris with Lleah Smith, Currents. Meet in ACCA foyer. This program will take place in the gallery and outside in Ngargee Courtyard
10.30am – 12.00pm Workshop
Anastasia Murney, Tarot Reading for Planetary Survival. Meet in ACCA foyer
12.00 – 1.30pm
[BREAK]
1.30 – 3.00pm Walkshop
Courtney Pedersen and Charles Robb, The ad hoc academy: found materials as organisational models. Meet in Ngargee Courtyard
1.30 – 3.00pm Workshop
Anastasia Murney, Tarot Reading for Planetary Survival. Meet in ACCA foyer
1.30 – 3.00pm Workshop
Clare Milledge, Succulent Friends, hosted by CACP members. Meet in Ngargee Courtyard
3.15 – 4pm Galvanising
Reflections and crowd sourcing towards climate aware practices. Location TBC
4.00 – 5.45pm
[BREAK]
5.45pm
Alicia Frankovich, Feather Star 2025, live performance at ACCA
For more information and to register, click here.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS & BOOKING LINKS
Weathering under pressure; scores and dancerly practices for unstable times
[10.30am–12pm]
Facilitator: Dr Jo Pollitt, Centre for People, Place & Planet, Edith Cowan University, Whadjuk Noongar Country)
Description: The ability to attune to instability is becoming increasingly vital in unstable times. This workshop will experiment with dancerly and writerly forecasting practices via scores of relational and haptic weather-charting. Underpinned by honing improvisational attention and writing as dancing practices, it will focus on developing sensitivity and agility in responding to weather that is on the move and under pressure. Responses to the exhibition work of Climate Aware Creative Practices will be generated.
Currents
[10.30am–12pm]
Facilitator: Dr Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris, UNSW with Lleah Smith (Phd Candidate, Monash University)
Description: Currents examines how artists in The Charge That Binds represent, interpret, and respond to water’s multifaceted significance — from its life-sustaining properties to its portrayal as a site of conflict and ecological concern. In the Relational Ecologies Intensive, Currents will be an intimate ‘watershop’ that responds to the exhibition’s themes of water and circulation and is understood as an extension of the theory of the Hydrocene (2024). The watershop works with the lab and involves collecting rainwater from the surrounds of ACCA in the lead up to the workshop.
Tarot Reading for Planetary Survival
[10.30am–12pm]
[1.30pm–3pm]
Facilitator: Dr Anastasia Murney, UNSW
Description: A Tarot reading can be enacted daily, weekly, monthly, with a reader, with a group of people, or by oneself. Tarot is an old practice that unfolds through a deck of playing cards, used for entertainment and divination. I facilitate group Tarot workshops in my work as a university teacher and with friends and colleagues, often in response to problems relating to anthropogenic climate change. I approach Tarot as a form of ‘affective cartography,’ weaving together stories and emotions into unexpected arrangements that can open spaces for unsettling ‘rational’ habits of thought and developing social infrastructures for working out how to think, move, and plan together. I suggest Tarot contributes something that is lacking from our current responses to anthropogenic climate change, that is, a social context for sorting and processing information. In this way, Tarot can be valuable for working out how to sit with the slow and the urgent, the spiritual and material, knowing and not knowing. One thing Tarot teaches is that there are no ‘big’ solutions without small, iterative processes, riddled with fraught questions and unexpected tangents.
In the first part of the workshop, a central question or ‘problem’ will be collectively formulated in dialogue with the themes of the exhibition. I facilitate the reading, laying out a spread of cards, uncovering each one, offering an explanation and reflection on how it relates to the central question. Then, I invite further comments, questions, and reflections from participants. Participants are encouraged to actively contribute but are also welcome to listen and observe. There will be a record of the discussion recorded in real-time on the walls of the gallery.
The ad hoc academy: found materials as organisational models
[1.30–3pm]
Facilitators: Drs Courtney Pedersen and Charles Robb (QUT School of Creative Arts)
Description: In this hands-on workshop, participants will use open-studio methods to explore the potential of found materials to act as catalysts for reimagining educational structures. By engaging with the sensory properties of various objects—their textures, smells, and forms—we’ll create diagrammatic prompts that serve as metaphors for organisational structures. The aim of the workshop is to inspire fresh perspectives on how public institutions, particularly universities, can be reimagined as cooperative, ethical systems. By the end of the workshop, participants will have developed speculative models for envisioning more collaborative and sustainable organisational environments. This workshop aims to bridge abstract concepts with concrete, tactile experiences, encouraging creative thinking about institutional structures and practices.
Succulent Friends
[1.30–3pm]
Facilitator: Dr Clare Milledge, UNSW, facilitated by CACP members
Description: Succulents are popular garden plants due to their low maintenance and distinctive forms, but for many people the word “succulent” only produces images of introduced species from South Africa, Madagascar and beyond. Native succulents are all around us, but we often don’t know they are there. ‘Succulent friends’ is an art workshop that introduces audiences to native plant species that are all around us.
Designed by artist Clare Milledge as a set of easy and fun instructions in a box set, it can be coordinated as a workshop by folks near and far. You’ll create colourful artwork, learn about native succulents and be inspired to create your own low maintenance ‘succulent friend’ garden at home, full of native species.
VENUES AND ACCESS
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA)
ACCA is located at 111 Sturt Street, Southbank, in the Melbourne Arts Precinct. Enter from Sturt Street. There’s a tram stop nearby, and plenty of car parks and bike racks. It’s also a nice walk from Flinders Street train station.
ACCA is fully wheelchair accessible, with two accessible car park spaces just outside the entrance on Sturt Street and a wheelchair accessible bathroom. ACCA also has a wheelchair that is available on request for use by visitors. We also welcome Assistance Dogs in the gallery.
Read more about access and planning your visit here.
Ngargee Courtyard
The Ngargee Courtyard is located here, between ACCA and Malthouse Theatre.

GETTING THERE
On a Tram
The No. 1 South Melbourne tram goes right past our door. Get off at Stop 18. Any tram down St Kilda Road—jump off at Grant Street, Stop 17 and take a 3-minute walk.
On a Train
Any train to Flinders Street, then a 12-minute stroll through Melbourne’s sparkling Arts Precinct.
Cycling
Secure your bike to one of the many racks outside the foyer. There are also plenty of public Lime e-bikes & e-scooters within the vicinity.
Parking Options
Limited on-street parking is available on Grant Street, Sturt Street, and Dodds Street. Two Disabled parking spaces are just outside The Malthouse entrance on Sturt Street.