2023 & THE SELBE RIVER / January 1, 2024 by Nathan Stoneham

INTRODUCTION:
HOMO HILL TO HANZO; 16 years between drinks

January 1st, 2023: I grind coffee beans, telepathically activating them to ease a Mongolian vodka headache. Outside, the Selbe River has frozen solid. Snow topped mountains collage the soviet-era city to the sky.

Rewind: The night before, in Hanzo (Miami Hotel Edition), a queer bar run by the legend that’s always run the queer bars in Ulaanbaatar, I counted down to the new year with a friend that I met in the original Hanzo eight years earlier.

Rewind: In 2016 I was here in Mongolia as an independent artist, creating Love Bus - a show made with the local LGBT Human Rights Centre. Think multi-site performance across the city - part theatre, part vigil, part protest, part birthday party for a five-year-old with two mums… and part exclusive city tour on a swashbuckling chartered bus. As part of the creative development, I danced amongst concrete rubble at the original Hanzo’s closing down party, and met a pash.

Rewind: In 2011, I was working as a youth drama trainer in Tonga, when the late Anaraa Nyamdorj, then-director of the LGBT Human Rights Centre in Mongolia, invited me to be the centre’s first artist in residence.

Rewind: 2007. 21 years old. I’d drink at Seoul’s homo hill and eat sunrise kamjatang (pork bone soup) with three Mongolian friends living in Korea. One never returned to Mongolia, another moved to Japan, and the other was there at Hanzo - counting down the seconds to 2023 with me. We said hi after sixteen years.

When people ask, “why Mongolia?” It’s because of the pork bone soup chats and crushes. Because of that invite and trust from Anaraa… because of Love Bus… because I grew up in the bush, bathed in tea tree oil and basted with lavender balm, appreciating the wild, never meeting other queers, wondering what else was out there.

NOMADS NOT MOMOS

Sometimes when I tell people back home that I’m living in Mongolia, they picture me riding a horse through the desert with an eagle on my shoulder, or sleeping by a fire in a ger (yurt) under a yak hide. But the reality is, I live in an apartment block with wifi, a bathtub, and toasty central heating. Like, I can see a Pizza Hut from my kitchen window.

And sometimes people think I’m in Nepal? Maybe there’s some confusion between Mongolia and Nepal’s momos?

To clarify, Mongolia is a big, but sparse, democratic country between Russia and China. It’s the “Land of the Eternal Blue Sky” - sunny about 230 days a year. Winters drop down to negative thirty degrees celsius. It was the home of Chingis Khan, whose empire extended all the way to Europe a good 600 years ago. Half of the country’s 3 million people live in Ulaanbaatar - a congested and charming tapestry of Soviet flats, gers (yurts), and skyscrapers, is the world’s coldest capital city (we can claim this until Greenland becomes independent). Mongolia is known for its nomadic culture and hospitality, which is still practiced today, its horses, throat singing, wrestling, and its vast landscapes that don’t fit on postcards. Ulaanbaatar is in the same timezone as Perth, but about 2,000 metres higher… and without the coast.

There are no momos, but there are plenty of buuz - the big juicy dumplings that’re served all year but especially at Tsagaan Sar (Mongolian New Year). And suutei tsai (salty milk tea). And tsuivan (fried beef noodles), khuushuur (meat pastry), khorkhog (mutton cooked by hot river stones), goulash, shepherds pie, pickles, more sour dairy products than you can poke an archery arrow at, sea buckthorn juice, and a lot of potato salad. You know that sizzling Mongolian beef we get at the Chinese buffet back home? Haven’t seen it once.

This post is a reflection on my 2023. It’s about beauty and crisis. It’s about my efforts to notice and enjoy what we stand to lose - within, around, and between us. It’s about my search for different life paths on this miraculous and savage planet, hurtling through a universe that’s expanding to make space for all the sorrow and love, as we chip away at our own extinction.

COLD CRISIS

Mongolian winters are long, the days are short, the ice is slippery, and in Ulaanbaatar, the air pollution is bad. Surrounding the city centre, people living in ever growing unplanned neighbourhoods that aren’t connected to amenities, burn coal to stay warm, producing a lot of smoke that mixes with the pollution from cars and factories, and fine sand from the Gobi desert.

Zooming out: mass migration from the countryside to the city is largely due to the loss of livestock in extremely cold winters known as dzud (more about these disasters here, or watch the movie The Wolves Always Come at Night). Climate change is making these extreme winters colder, and more frequent. Those paying the price of climate change now, are those least responsible for it. Mongolia is heating up faster than other places. More extreme and more regular weather events not only threaten Mongolia’s nomadic culture, it further fuels economic inequality and social disadvantage. Crisis.

When I look at the frozen Selbe River from my apartment window, I remember that pause is a part of flow. When conditions change, intentional waiting can be a wise, or at least necessary state. But at the same time, prolonged silence and stillness may be our greatest threat.

THE GOLDEN MAGPIE OF DEMOCRACY

From October 2022 to July 2023, I worked at Zorig Foundation as an Australian Volunteer with the Australian Volunteers Program.

The foundation is named after Sanjaasürengiin Zorig, the leader of Mongolia’s democratic revolution, who was assassinated in 1998. His murder remains an unsolved mystery. After his death, his family and peers set up the foundation, to continue his legacy. Now the team run over fifteen programs every year, from scholarships to leadership training, international exchanges to social-media campaigns. They “empower, equip, inform and inspire young people and change-makers to make a real difference in their communities and beyond.”

I facilitated strategic planning sessions with the team, assisted with project proposals and grant applications, and worked with the staff as they refreshed their communications and branding.

PINA COLADAS AND LOGIC FRAMEWORKS

The frigid winter was a test for this kid from the warm Queensland bush. Thankfully, as part of the Volunteers Program, I got a quick warm escape to Cambodia (via Seoul) for some training, clean air, and fresh fruit and veg. After time in Phnom Penh, I made my way south to Koh Rong and Koh Rong Sanloem for bungalows, cocktails, whole barbecue fish on the beach, and ocean swims. While there, I submitted the biggest grant application of my life with Zorig Foundation to the European Union. A hundred pages of responses, logic frameworks, and budgets. How relaxing! We pitched a huge youth development program all about supporting young people to lead community development activities. We were shortlisted, which was a big win in itself, but unsuccessful in the end. There are pros and cons to not getting that cash. The resources would have kicked off some amazing things, but would the labour of squeezing the square peg of grass roots community work into the round hole of international development managerialism help or hinder us in the long run?

The Selbe River melted, letting go of everything the ice had held onto. First: an empty Yellowtail wine bottle, a lost leather boot, and a muddy queen-size mattress.

Then, the body of a dove that’d hit a glass window, a street dog that didn’t survive the winter, and a plastic snow sled snapped in half by the force of a Father’s love.

Then, more frozen detritus from the past - mistakes, regrets, unsent voice memos, out-of-sync glances, half-formed apologies, humiliating browser search histories, messages left on read, thirst traps, what ifs, broken boundaries, and held back compliments… all revealed, lifeless, as the ice melts and they slide downstream.

And then, the ducks came back.

ORDINARY THINGS PICTURED ABOVE:

An important neighbourhood message
Cake #3466 with the work crew
Indie rock band, The Lemons live in UB
UB’s best sourdough
Queers for women at Sukhbaatar Square
A selfie at the bougie Shangri-La gym
Remembering Zorig
Trecking Bogd Khan with a mate on the first day that I could take my jacket off outside

EXTRAORDINARY THINGS:

A piece of American space junk that fell out of the sky and landed in the Mongolian desert. I’m obsessed with it. You can find it at Hustai National Park where the once pronounced extinct Przewalkski’s horse lives on. Read more here.

PICS FROM A TRANS MONGOLIAN RAIL Trip to Sukhbaatar NEAR THE RUSSIAN BORDER

and then I got medically evacuated to Korea to get my tonsils out.

Ate a lot of rice porridge.

Summer saw me nerd out on wild flowers. Beauty.

On July 5th I woke up to the sounds of sirens, and emergency announcements booming through loudspeakers. From my window, I could see the Selbe bursting. Water was gushing over its banks, flooding roads and filling up basements.

Half a year’s rain fell in a couple of days.

We were in the way.

I evacuated as water lapped at the door to my apartment block. When I returned a few hours later, it had risen further, and crews had started sandbagging the river banks.

I (we?) spend a lot of time pretending that we are not living in a time of collapse. Not only are we unprepared for disasters, but we are creating them, putting profits before planning, and perpetuating the lie that somehow nature is separate to us, and something we can control.

We are nature - and not only that - the most reckless part of nature that I know of. Crisis.

Hello STRANGER

Brian came to visit! Brian is the illustrator of The Footprint and though we had been working together online for a couple of years, we had only met twice in real life. He also has a habit of chuffing off to very isolated, very cold places.

We went south for flaming cliffs, eagle valleys, sand dunes, stargazing, and deserts for days. Then north for freshwater lakes, ancient monasteries, airag (fermented mares milk), and extinct volcanos. Photos here.

There is nowhere a Toyota Prius can’t go, and Mongolians have always said that!

Somewhere in the Gobi Desert we said let’s be boyfriends or some shit.

We flew home via Korea. Highlights include the abalone porridge at Jagalchi Market, Anthracite coffee’s Seogyo branch, and sleeping through a typhoon in Busan. Crisis averted.

I popped home for a couple of months and did a few things:

Market Market

A gorgeous artists’ lab on Larrakia country. Read my response HERE.

Australian Performing Arts Forum

As Lenine Bourke’s professional sidekick, I had the pleasure of co-facilitating the *ON COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY – co-designing the future of the arts sector* session at APAF.
Community Arts and Cultural Development practice is endangered. But it comes naturally for my friend and mentor, Lenine. She practices this radical approach no matter what the gig is, ushering ambiguity and spontaneity and queer joy into places where all that’s usually stamped out.
Love Lenine. What an odd couple.

All Aussie Adventure

In September and October, I caught up with friends and fam, and hit the road in my van.

Cooloola Great Walk & Mum

Nana and Grandad at Mt. Mee

Dangar Falls

Sorento Reuion

The Grampians

Green Hill Lake

Samurai Beach

Muttonbird Island

Anglesea

BACK TO THE SELBE

With my Aesop and Indian spices restocked, I flew back to Mongolia for my second assignment with the Australian Volunteers Program, this time at the Arts Council of Mongolia. I worked there for the rest of the year and into 2024 - but I’ll save that for next time. In my spare time I shared bottles of negroni at Dunzengarav and sipped flat whites at ROK with my dear friend Duke, attended Australian embassy events, swam, worked out, went to sound meditation, and danced at the gritty queer disco, DIEX, as the Selbe slowly began to freeze once again.

THE WATER WAY

The Selbe River is a trickling stream, and an unstoppable beast. A sparkling silk and a muddy wound. Children skate on its ice, teenagers make out on its banks, and the lost toast to it, swigging corner store vodka with throat-singing ghosts under Sagittarius in the sky. Grandmas watch over it, longing, knowing something I don’t. A plastic bag is scooped out with a walking stick. A baby sleeps in a pram, calmed by the sound of water changing form, melting in search of a way off the plateau. It snips the city in two when running and bridges east and west when frozen. It is perfect in its transitions and its mess. It is wild and cracked, pristine and murky. Stubborn, unforgiving, and nurturing. It is nature, and so am I. We are capable of holding on, letting go, destruction, tenderness, and renewal.

That was my 2023.

Crisis.

Beauty.

ART ON THE WING; Response to MARKET MARKET / October 3, 2023 by Nathan Stoneham

DotS SO FAR APART THEY’RE STARS.

This journal holds a collection of notes and scribbles, collected on Larrakia Country, during Next Wave’s Market Market artist lab. This lab brought together Darwin-based artists and artists from across the continent, to spend time in each other’s company, share ways of working in place, question experimental practice, and take time to think, reflect, and look towards the horizon.

Here I’ll share and annotate some pages, drawing faint lines between distant dots, to connect thoughts, old and new, about responding, caring, and creating. I’ll zoom in and out, from small details to the bigger picture, and back and forth, from old memories to new ideas.

We contrive to do it.

When I was invited to offer a response to Market Market, I was reminded of a response I received in 2010 from a dear friend and mentor, Roger Rynd. He was my director in Korea where I was performing in children’s theatre. Rog taught me a lot about sparking friendships across culture and language, through art-making, partying, and rooftop fireworks. After a day of rehearsals, where he observed artists from Australia and Korea working together, he emailed me his “scribblings” at 4:20am.

It is apparent that other creatures also dance and sing; and like us they do it for sex and territory. Perhaps migrating whales sing for deep companionship. But we contrive to do it. Imaginatively and logically; and we also do it for the transcendent spirit of the act itself. To express from deep within, our joy and sadness, our han and jong.

Ten years after his death, alone in a Covid locked-down Naarm / Melbourne apartment, I read Roger’s “scribblings” to a group of his family and friends who’d come together on Zoom to observe the anniversary, and remember him together.

In Darwin, a group of artists contrived to do things – to make and share things – from laksa to art experiments, from playful walks to questionable dance moves, from risograph prints to salty swims and sunset fish and chips.

The White-breasted Woodswallow and I.

I grew up barefoot in a eucalypt forest on Jinibara country, in the mountains not too far north of Meanjin / Brisbane.

Grandad was a fisherman. When I was young, we’d cruise around Moreton Bay, and walk across mudflats where the sharp, pointy mangrove shoots threatened to skewer my feet.

I’ve been moving around for almost twenty years. Often, I fly north for Mongolian or Korean winters. Mates are long-distance lovers, or one-night-stand-strangers, or gym buddies that I Sunday-swim-and-brunch with.

Along Gurambai / Rapid Creek, the white-breasted woodswallows roost, cuddling up together. I wondered if they were strangers. I wondered if this was home, or if they were just visiting too.

After my grand-aunt Daffney died, a finch got stuck in the house. It let me pick it up to set it free. As far as I know, I’m the only queer in my extended family. But Aunty Daff never married or had kids – and lived with a woman for most of her life. Fly now.

After my Dad died, a red king parrot came by, to spend time in the rafters of the carport.

The white-breasted woodswallow is found in eucalypt forests and woodlands, usually close to water, and in mangroves. They eat on the wing (while flying) and are nomadic; partially migratory in the south of their range, moving north during autumn and south during spring.

Care’s not all cuddles and community.

On a birdwatching walk, the Market Market artists admired and anthropomorphised the white-breasted woodswallow; especially the way they snuggled in groups. We drew parallels between their lives and ours – how we come together and separate, assemble and disband. What we didn’t see, was them MOBBING raptors to protect themselves.

Care’s not all cuddles and community… for the white-breasted woodswallow, care also involves aggressive action against dangerous threats.

At Next Wave, we talk a lot about care. The cuddly care and the clustering in communities as care are important. But we talk less about the raptor-mobbing care. It got me thinking about the ways we care that are less socially acceptable – the queer care – the non-normative care – the illegal care. This led me to discover David McGovern’s work HARDCARE which “makes visible people, acts and places of care that sit outside the norm.”

HARDCARE explores the fringes of care; that which is kept hidden from view or seen as deviant. It rejects care as soft and passive, and acknowledges the hardship involved in some acts of keeping well. HARDCARE proposes new language and aesthetics for care.

Amongst other artists in Darwin, through curated shared experiences, learning about each other, and witnessing artistic experiments, I felt care being sparked as trust began to form. With more time, we’d not only cluster, but we’d help with each other’s battles, and offer non-clinical and spreadsheet-free care. We’d learn about our raptors, and the safest places to flock and fuck.

The build-up.

Those living in the top end spoke of “the dry”, “the build-up”, and “the wet season”. They warned us about the build-up, when the heat and humidity is relentless, people are irritable, mangoes take over, and break-up levels peak.

I arrived before the humidity, while Darwin Festival was in full-flight. I was introduced to what it’s like to be an artist there at that particular time. It’s hectic. Everything’s on at once. Everyone’s working across multiple projects. Outside festival time, local artists spoke of a generally slower pace in Darwin, a DIY approach, and a supportive community and who’s worked on each other’s projects for a long time. Despite everyone’s busy schedules, we were met with energy and generosity.

From brown paper bags, QR codes led us to mini video and sound works – including one that took me back to those days among the mangroves. Projected on the side of the market building, the flesh of fruit met the flesh of the body, with us as witnesses of this intimate interchange. We ate Indonesian curries in a gallery alongside the Blak Power - 50 Years of First Nations Superheroes in Australian Art exhibition. We laughed with traditional owner, Nadia Lee, and attempted to distill why we make art. For me: To feel alive. To play. To connect. To move towards “the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality” (José Esteban Muñoz). We danced at a joyously welcoming Sangeet under the stars. Light was shaped by hand and spilt over bodies, over white walls, over Gurambai. Needing a moment of quiet, I found myself out the back recording the hum and buzz of an air conditioner. Stall owners’ favourite tunes spun as we ate pho and a waitress danced in the corridor outside. She told me she was remembering home and longing to move further south.

Extraordinary creatures.

These couple of pages offer a skewed snapshot of my time in Darwin, but capture some thoughts about responding, caring, and creating.

I visited temporarily, but the sugarcane continues to crackle through the press. The blood orange sun keeps sinking into the sea. Noisy blenders whipping up tropical fruits persist, interrupting the 90s bangers pumping from the juice stall. The white-breasted woodswallows sing, nest, raise their young, and care like their lives depend on it.

I always feel like a visitor, because I am constantly moving and because my ancestors are not from this continent – but also because in the grand scheme of things, my time here is brief. While I’m around, I want to cluster and cuddle, hardcare in the queerest ways, witness the worlds of artists and the seasons that shape their work, and make art on the wing.

I’ll leave you with another passage from Roger’s early morning scribblings:

…for now we make sounds that craft the air around us, sounds unique to this world, unique to us. None of this would be possible in a vacuum, every sound you utter is a celebration of this extraordinary planet, and of you as an extraordinary creature.

Mongolian Summer Trip, 2023 / August 6, 2023 by Nathan Stoneham

Gandantegchinlen Monastery

Yoliin Am

West of Dalanzadgad

Bayanzag

Havsgait Valley petroglyphs

Moltsog Els Dunes

HIGHWAY REST AREA

Amarbayasgalant Monastery

Khuvsgul Lake

Ulaanbaatar

The bottom drawer of my brain; Reflection on 2022. / January 4, 2023 by Nathan Stoneham

I’m cleaning out the bottom drawer of my brain.

It’s where bits and pieces go to be forgotten, but are never out of reach.

A dark room for the miscellaneous and mediocre.

A too-hard basket.

There’s unresolved shit in here from years ago. Alongside some delicate treasures.

It’s a precious mess. I’m going to sort through the debris.

Let’s Marie Kondo the fuck outta 2022.

1. A Deflated Inflatable Unicorn

From Woodford

I woke up on the first on January 2022 in my van, at one of my favourite places to be - Woodfordia on Jinibara country.

I’d met a blonde cutie at the bush dance. He had a giant inflatable unicorn strapped to the roof of his van. When the music stopped and the chai ran dry, I wasn’t ready for our festival fling to end, so I stayed on as a volunteer to help pack up the site… but really, so I could have more swims in the lake with him, and more late-night van visits.

He’d catch me looking at him with absolute admiration. I saw things alive in him that have died in me.

2.
Sandy Surfboard Wax

From living on the Gold Coast for most of the year

I moved to the GC at the end of 2021 for a contract at the local council planning / producing / facilitating young artist development programs.

I lived in a sharehouse with a personal stylist, and a PT / life coach. The stylist diagnosed my look as the “Dad next door / magician / creator” type, and helped me with my colour palette (no surprises: cream, charcoal, burnt orange, deep blue, dark green). The PT liked emotional deep dives for growth and transformation. They both did a lot of personal challenges. Ice baths, cacao ceremonies, ecstatic dancing, 30 days of asking strangers for help, 3am alarms. I’d say we didn’t have much in common. But, we were all trying to find our own way - beating different paths through the same bullshit.

I jumped in the ocean often. Surfed here and there. Ate acai bowls and sipped lattes from handmade ceramic cups amongst draped linen, driftwood, and cacti.

The Gold Coast is the straightest city I have ever visited.

3. A Fucktonne of Pastel Index Cards

From writing a screenplay

Anyone who knows 지하 Underground - the show I wrote with my first love, Jeremy Neideck and a bunch of our dearest friends from Australia and Korea - knows it’s all about the vibe, the space by M’ck McKeague, the music, the joy, and the themes of love, loss, and longing… the story is simple: a misfit’s lifelong search for queer love and belonging.

Turning it into a 100-page screenplay was a massive challenge. All our partners and mentors and script editors tried with all their might and passion to support us to bring drama and tension and structure to this story for SBS & Screen QLD. It was like trying to hold the ocean in our hands. It was like trying to define queer.

Let’s leave that script in the bottom drawer for now. We might come back it later. Or start again.

4. Sugar Sachets

From hosting *All The Queens Men’s LGBTIQ+ Elders Dance Clubs*

Twice a month, in Brisbane and on the GC, I had the privilege of honouring older queers, making space for intergenerational connections, and dancing with people who’ve seen a lot, fought for a lot, survived a lot, fucked a lot, and loved a lot.

5.
Paint Pens

From facilitating *The Makers Collective*
at *Art From The Margins*

Every Monday I facilitated a creative peer-to-peer learning workshop, an inclusive space for artists with disability to support and encourage each other, and work on art pieces and products that could be shared and sold. The artists worked in photography, textile art, painting, digital media, craft. They were passionate about brains, the environment, astrology, cats, and community.

It was one of those groups where you had to be prepared for anything. And my main role, actually, was helping with co-regulation - to prepare the conditions for creativity and connections.

6.
Little Hotel Shampoos

From all the nights in Brisvegas

I did more trips up and down the M1 than I care to count. To avoid some, I stayed in Brizzy hotels a lot. Think Grindr hookups. Think Nespresso. Think face masks. Think positioning my laptop in such a way for zoom calls so as not to reveal the naked bi Filipino New Zealander babe still asleep in the hotel bed.

7. An Hourglass

From producing *Awkward Conversations* for *The Big Anxiety’s The Big Reach*

Awkward Conversations offers one-on-one conversations in experimental formats, tackling anxieties, habits and hard-to-talk-about subjects like mental health.

I had the pleasure of supporting a fab bunch of artists as they approached difficult topics - from suicide to transphobic parents - with strangers, in a contrived setting. You can’t get much more at the intersection of social work and the arts than this.

8.
Red Flags

From being an artist in residence at *Bleach Festival*

In a shipping container by the sea, my dear friend Lenine Bourke and I created a new work, Everyday Underscore. It was a facilitated experience that invited audiences to connect personal relationships to our relationships with the environment… We encouraged participants to reflect on the red flags they’ve seen, and the red flags they’ve flown, in their relationships with other humans and non-humans. The work took the form of a structured walk along the beach, with time for hard questions about survival and extinction, reflective and speculative activities about break-ups and the climate crisis, and cognitive breaks gazing out to sea.

9.
Poppers

(Juice, not the fun kind)
From producing *Mammalian Diving Reflex’s Nightwalks with Teenagers* for *Brisbane Festival*

This show does exactly what it says on the tin: you follow teens being teens through the city at night. You climb shit, play games, play music, snack, dance. You talk about school, sexuality, movies, drugs, pizza, lonliness, eshays, gender, anxiety, and everything else.

In a cute full-circle moment, one of the teenagers from Mammalian Diving Reflex who took me on an unofficial night walk when I was in Toronto years ago, was one of the producers and facilitating artists of the project for Brisbane Festival! An absolute highlight was spending time with the Mammalian crew… we drank and danced in Brisbane’s trashiest club, fine-dined by the river to satisfy a sashimi craving, smashed midnight pancakes with cheap Aussie bubbly… and crossed our fingers that the five of us, from Australia, Canada, the UK, and Italy - might cross paths again. Lotta love there.

Recruitment of teenagers was hard. This was a case of making it work as best I could given the circumstances. I appreciate the opportunity to work on contemporary, socially-engaged art. The young people involved loved it.

10. Loose Notes & Doodles

From being on the Artistic Directorate of *Next Wave.*

It’s exciting to be a part of Next Wave’s experiment to have an artistic directorate, rather than one Artistic Director. There’s eight of us across the continent, and we come together online to contribute to the direction of Next Wave, while working with the Kickstart Artists in our home states who’re developing their most ambitious new works yet. We’re operating from the values of friendship, justice, and care to trial new ways of curating and supporting artists to experiment and tell critical stories that matter now.

11. A Photo of Dad, & Covid Tests,
wrapped in my Ex’s T-shirt

All from 2020. All very present.

12.
Boarding Passes

From flights to Hobart, then Cairns, via Melboure to be a mentor on *Perfoming Lines’ Artist Residencies*

I guess, like accepting my Daddy era, I have to accept that I have enough experience these days to be a mentor. Mentors played a huge role in my development as an artist, community worker, producer, homo, and human, and it feels very special to now mentor others. The Performing Lines residencies are exciting, intense weekends with shit-hot artists - where ideas are pulled apart, thrown at the wall, and scattered on snowy mountaintops and tropical lakes.

13.
A Seashell

From publishing a bilingual children’s picture book

The Footprint has been years in the making. It‘s a story I wrote a long time ago, and something very dear to my heart. It’s about Eugene, who blames his shoes for all of his mistakes… and Suzie, who uses the very same shoes to make an extraordinary impact.

It’s about transforming our world through care.

It’s in English and Korean, thanks to Younghee Park.

The illustrations are drop-dead gorgeous, thanks to Brian Cheung.

We self-published it, and we would love for you to share it with the children, and the young at heart, in your life.

It’s available here.

Everyone knows I am now long-distance-slow-boil-crushing on the illustrator.

14.
A tube of topical steroid cream

From living in Mongolia

I am in the coldest capital city in the world - Ulaanbaatar. I’ve been here two months, and I’ll stay until mid next year. It’s negative 20 degrees outside today - which is not bad, considering it was negative 35 degrees out there recently. Air pollution is currently “unhealthy” which is better than “hazardous”. It’s dry. My air filter and humidifier run 24/7. Protestors have been assembling in the freezing city square for weeks after it was revealed that government authorities have been stealing billions of dollars of coal profits over recent years.

The countryside is breathtaking. Snow-covered mountains, gers (yurts), horses, frozen rivers and dormant forests.

I’m working at a non-government organisation who have been advancing democracy for 25 years through community development, and youth and education programs. I love the org, I love the team, I love the work.

I’m warm and safe in my apartment. I go to a fancy gym often. I’m reconnecting with friends I made when I was here seven years ago, and making new ones. I’ll write more about all this later.

Oh yeah, the cream is for a rash on my back. I guess the conditions here are a bit harsh for this pale ginger soft kid from the warm Queensland bush?

Reminding me to lighten up, stop taking life so seriously, and have fun. Bloody toxic new-age positivity.

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THIS SHIT?

Look, I dunno, but I’ve taken time to sort through the leftovers of 2022, and that’s the main thing.

As a reward for my efforts, there’s a little bit more space.

Everything has its place.

I can close the drawer, and face 2023.

This year, I’ll keep an eye on work, so it doesn’t take up so much room again. And since I’m no good at arranging my life around love, I will arrange love around my life.

Happy New Year,

Nathan.

Prayer to be expelled / February 9, 2022 by Nathan Stoneham

Please protect me from harm.

Keep me safe, as my place in this classroom is debated.

Save me from those who want to save me.

Steer me away from those with good intentions and bad actions.

Protect me from those who reject me - but especially - from those who want to keep me here in a place that denies who I am.

Help me to understand that I do not deserve to be expelled. Help others to understand that making my expulsion illegal, takes away one of my only escapes.

Please help others to see, that it is not my expulsion that is the tragedy. The tragedy is a childhood spent in shame. The tragedy is only knowing this place.

Please direct your efforts to my liberation, not my assimilation.

Help me to find somewhere I can survive.

Help others to love me.

Don’t force them to pretend.

Help me love myself.

Help all my friends get out. Leave nobody here.

If you love us, set us free.

Then burn this place down.

Photo by Amaury Gutierrez on Unsplash

I WILL NOT PREACH WHAT I PRACTICE / February 3, 2022 by Nathan Stoneham

Please note, before reading on, this post is in response to the Citipointe Enrolment Contract, and the college’s Media Statement about withdrawing the contract. It includes a threatening tone, and alludes to unsafe school and church settings.

MEDIA STATEMENT

I made my views loud and clear.

But I am withdrawing what I said.

My views have not changed, but I will not promote them loudly.

I will express them in the quietest, sneakiest ways. Sometimes in ways you won’t even notice. Sometimes in ways we’ll never speak of.

I am no longer asking anyone to agree with me. But I know many of you do. And while we may not be allowed to talk about it, trust that I still believe it. You can see it in my eyes.

I regret that I revealed my truth. It is a dark, dangerous truth, that should not be exposed. I will keep it hidden. Simmering away inside. Only when it boils over will you remember it’s there at all. And the wound will burn again.

It is central to my faith that being gay or transgender in no way diminishes a person’s humanity or dignity in God’s eyes. All I said was, it’s immoral and destructive to society. Don’t twist my words.

It is also deeply distressing that some of our students have been vilified in the community. I would never vilify or discriminate against our gay and transgender students, I simply describe their behaviour as sexually immoral, sinful, and offensive to God. No offense.

We have the freedom to form a community, and parents have the choice to join. Everyone has choices. The students, who often have no choice about what school they attend, and no choice about what their parents believe, can choose not to sin. To not be sexually immoral. I know firsthand how hard that choice is. But as we now know, avoiding criticism is less about the choices we make, and more about the choices we reveal. Secrecy and shame have their place.

I hope that by withdrawing what I said, I can get back to practicing what I once could preach.

I love and hate you so much.

ENDS

CONTRACT OF ENROLMENT BETWEEN STUDENT AND SCHOOL / February 1, 2022 by Nathan Stoneham

Before reading on, please note that this post alludes to unsafe school environments, and refers to sexual assault within schools - not explicitly.

STUDENT’S DECLARATION:

I am looking for a school that respects my family or families without fear or judgement. I am looking for a school that sees my family as a building block of society, regardless of what my family looks like, including, but not limited to, if I have two Mums, two Dads, parents that are not Mums or Dads, multiple parents, single carers, a village of carers, a chosen family, or a changing family.

I am looking for a school that accepts the diversity of ways that people can be in relationships, with and to each other. I am looking for a school that doesn’t assume that marriage or abstinence are the only options for me. Or that all loving relationships are “between a man and a woman”. I am looking for a school that encourages me to negotiate relationships in ways that allow the people involved to be safe, expressive, respected, and treated with kindness. I expect dignity, regardless of what my relationships look like. Even when they’re short. Even when there’s multiple. Even if they’re not based in love, or not focused on creating new life. I deserve dignity regardless.

I am looking for a school that accepts the reality that not all loving relationships are for life. Some are. Some change. Some end. I am looking for a school that thinks it’s more important for me to be supported, safe, and loved, than to maintain a relationship for life.

I am looking for a school that isn’t obsessed with biological sex. I am looking for a school that accepts my gender identity, and does not police it. I am looking for a school that allows me to change how I express myself over time. I am looking for a school that doesn’t feel entitled to make assumptions about my body, and use those assumptions to control what I wear, what I’m called, what sports teams I’m on, what bathrooms I use, or what I am capable of.

I am looking for a school that minds its own business.

I am looking for a sex positive school. I am looking to learn, not just about my own body, but other people’s bodies, and how we are all different. I am looking for a school that doesn’t shame me for my sexual desires or activity. I want to learn about sex, consent, the different ways people are intimate, boundaries, pleasure, how to question depictions of sex in media and online, sexual health, how to say no, and how to take care of others. I am looking for a school that sees my understanding of these things as empowering, not corrupting, or sinful.

I am looking for a school that does not see me as destructive to human relationships and society.

I am looking for a school that understands that some things are not my choice.

I am looking for a school that respects that some things should be my choice.

I am looking for a school that observes the United Nation’s Rights of the Child. When thinking about what might be in my best interest (Article 3), I’m looking for a school that considers the effects of its actions – and considers my right to development, life, and survival (article 6).

I am looking for a school that I can go to, and live. A school I can survive at.

I’m looking for a school that celebrates my right to expression (Article 13) and my freedom of thought, conscience, and religion (Article 14). I am looking for a school that recognises my right to education, with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity.

I am looking for a school that does not list homosexuality and bisexuality alongside paedophilia, incest, and beastiality.

I am looking for a school that is contributing to the elimination of ignorance (Article 28).

I am looking for a school that is not exempt from the antidiscrimination act.

I am looking for a school where I will not be preyed upon.

Signed, in acceptance of the Students’ declaration:

THE STUDENT:

THE SCHOOL:

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash

Iso, art, & crises; Reflection on 2020 / December 6, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

Iso in Melbourne & Mongolia

I lived alone during Melbourne's lockdown. It reminded me of the winter I spent in Mongolia. When I arrived in Ulaanbaatar it was -20 degrees outside and I didn't know anyone. I stayed in a lot.

At least in Mongolia, I could go out. I was there to work on a community arts project, so when I rugged up to brave the cold, it was to connect with the queer community to collaborate on a performance. We climbed mountains, drank vodka, got haircuts, ate buuz, and danced amongst the rubble of a semi-demolished gay bar. We also made a multi-site show across the city featuring stories, songs, a protest, a vigil, a bus for the audience, and a birthday cake for a six year old with two mums.

My new friends and I used the art project as an excuse to meet, spend time together, and we (or at least I) experienced aesthetic enrichment - joy, wonder, awe, fascination, and sadness in response to experiences involving other people, the body, the mind, and the senses. Outside the warm apartment, I was having what I'll call holistic experiences - they were socially, culturally, and spiritually enriching - while being connected to place and nature - all at once.

Locked down in Melbourne, leaving home for this kind of holistic experience was off the cards. Unconsciously, I separated my needs and attempted to address them individually. To stay physical, I worked out on a yoga mat in my bedroom. To stay social, I'd chat to friends and family on messenger and meet on zoom from the couch. Occasionally I’d say “hey” to a stranger on Grindr, but since meeting up wasn’t an option, conversations fizzled out quickly like a firework without the bang. To engage with culture, I streamed entertainment - watching Schitt's Creek and listening to Electric Fields, and Granny Bingo podcasts in bed, which provided some escapism. I maintained an income, working from my laptop at the kitchen table. To connect with nature, I'd walk to a gum tree or take my shoes off in the park to feel grass on my bare feet. I was grateful to be safe, sheltered, and fed. I was COVID19 negative, but not feeling especially well.

Netflix and chill from afar

As the lockdown dragged on, I was looking for something more. I was missing shared experiences, but not only that, I was missing shared experiences that were beautiful, sensory, embodied, emotional, or poetic. I was looking for social experiences with more culture - and cultural experiences that were more social. I was looking for holistic experiences like the ones I enjoyed in Mongolia… From a lonely lockdowned apartment in Melbourne, I wondered if it was possible.

My friends and I used Netflix Party to watch movies together on Friday nights from our separate homes. For me, this was more about the chats than the films. It was a moment to do something with others, and a welcome variation from isolation. It added a social dimension to netflix and chilling alone.

I started to "walk and talk" - arranging phone calls with friends while I walked through quiet suburbia, past a paused construction site, to a creek that ran through weeping willows. Talking while moving relaxed the conversation, and helped me be more present, and more myself. Frogs and birds underscored the voice on the other end of the line.

On my birthday, my friend Lauren delivered cocktails in jars to my doorstep. A group of us got on zoom where I got tipsy, half naked, and read original iso poetry. That hit the spot, even though I woke up the next day with a Brene Brown vulnerability hangover. Since there was self expression, sensory, and embodied elements, it was a little more holistic than your usual conference call.

My friend Libby reminded me of the importance of fun, and how interrupting the boardroom vibes of video calls is needed if we're hoping to meaningfully connect through those platforms. These interruptions can be intentional or not - in addition to cocktails, ridiculous face filters can help, as can embarrassing screen sharing mistakes, or the arrival of various pets or children into zoom windows.

Aesthetically enriching shared experiences at a distance

Initially, I wasn't conscious that I was looking for more holistic experiences as a result of living quite a fragmented and detached life. I was interested in how artists were adapting to the restrictions and started to talk to others about how they were finding ways for "aesthetically enriching shared experiences at a distance". My dear friend M'ck and I reflected on how our own friendship began online - as two young Queensland queers from separate country towns. Back in the era of online forums, we experienced joy, awe, and wonder as part of an online community, curating ideas and poetry for each other from afar.

Artist friends were facilitating workshops online, and sending art materials across the country to extend shared experience beyond the screen. Workshop participants could connect on zoom, and create, sculpt, or weave together. Dance and movement classes had people moving beyond the zoom window in their lounge rooms. These added an embodied, tactile, or sensory element to online activity. Many people were experimenting with how to make remote experiences less fragmented and separated, and more holistic and shared.

I watched the live stream of my Uncle's funeral, and cried with my family, who were 2000km away. I taught mum how I do my slow poached eggs over facebook messenger. Friends and I cooked and ate together, from our separate kitchens, sharing our lives in different ways. My friend Jamie took the experience of sharing food alone to the next level. She produced a project in Singapore wherein "a curated group of ten intergenerational audience participants savour a meal with headphones on, tuning in to an intercultural conversation between children and seniors in Australia and Singapore" (www.jamielewis.com.au).

In my own work, I was co-facilitating a community arts workshop series with 10 participants in Korea, many of whom experience disability. We're used to being in the same room together, sharing stories from our everyday life and making theatre. From our separate devices, across oceans, we shared the highs and lows of lockdowns, and collected writing and photos and ideas. We carved out a space where everyone was encouraged to bring their whole self to the conversation. We stretched our bodies together. We cried listening to music together. At times, we were having holistic experiences from a distance.

Quarantine

When my Dad passed away, I flew home to Queensland and spent two weeks in hotel quarantine. Holistic experiences like the ones in Mongolia were definitely not possible then, nor were the walk and talks or the gum tree visits. I separated mental health from everything else, and took targeted medication to address it. Grief, combined with an uncompassionate quarantine regime designed to protect me and others from COVID19 was not great for my well being. But I understood why it was required.

In quarantine, friends waved to me from the street below and sent up fresh fruit. I received personalised activities from friends, and a care package complete with a separate letter for every day of quarantine, each written by a different friend. Every morning, I'd open up the curtains to reveal the view of Mt. Cootha, sit on the floor with my forehead pressed against the window, and read letters, poems, and memories. My mum reminded me that you only need the tiniest glimpse of nature to feel connected to it. Luckily I had an entire mountain in the distance. I realised that the most meaningful and healing moments seem to be when there is less separation - not just of people - but of all the parts of myself. Those close to me facilitated shared experiences from a distance for me, and I am so grateful.

It should be mentioned that holism within health - “the inter-related, reciprocal, and unified state of connection within and across individual, familial, social, community, cultural, and ecological systems” is nothing new. It is sometimes ignored by whiteness, which tends to value the individual, the human, and the constructed boundaries within and around us. Many Indigenous writers from around the world explain that holism and interdependence are at the heart of their Indigenous worldviews. For me as a white person, there is an opportunity for further decolonisation of myself and my work by appreciating holism, and at the same time, a risk of cultural appropriation if not approached humbly and respectfully. The Western notion of holism can at times ignore structural inequalities, placing the responsibility on to individuals to restore balance in their own, separate lives.

Critical Holism

This year, plenty of days blurred together, where I didn't go outside, didn't connect with others, and didn't experience anything particularly moving. Amongst this though, there were small moments that felt special - moments that were outside the everyday and experienced through the senses, body, and mind. They were different because they didn't just offer entertainment or escapism - actually they offered the opposite - a chance to confront reality and be more present with others, despite the physical separation. Sadness was a relief from numbness and anxiety. In these special moments, the aesthetic was not separated from the social. There were glimpses towards holism during a fragmented year. Often, these moments were only possible due to the generosity and thoughtfulness of others. It reminded me that while we can take some responsibility for our own wellbeing, we play a major role in the wellbeing of others - not just through care, generosity, and thoughtfulness, but through offering stories, music, poetry, imagery, emotions, and ideas.

I’m not saying we shouldn't separate our needs and desires and address them separately - I think it's often important and helpful to do so, and this year, doing just that helped me get through some tough times. I also acknowledge the important treatments and therapies that directly and successfully address specific issues. At the same time, thinking about prevention instead of cures, I wonder if there would be less need for fragmented fixes if the world around us offered more holistic experiences - where we're enriched socially, mentally, physically, culturally, and spiritually - while expressing our generosity to each other and nature.

Realising that I'm looking to engage in and offer more holistic experiences, I'll practice resisting some forms of separation. This is a radical act, since the separation of our needs and desires, and our efforts to satiate them independently results in siloed products and services that are better suited to capitalism and more profitable for the rich.

Heteronormativity encourages the separation of our professional, public, and private lives, and there is not always cohesion between them, which fractures our lives further. For safety, I hide and reveal my own queerness as I move between contexts. Queer ways of thinking remind us that our individual needs and desires do not need to be met from a single source. For me, holism may be about seeing my body and mind as one, in relationship to others and my environment - including oppressive structures - and accepting that this system is interconnected and in flux. For me, holism is not about putting my fractured life back together in a way that conforms to heteronormativity or white supremacy - but in a way where I receive and offer holistic experiences, with others, without ignoring or damaging our environments. This approach also threatens neoliberalism's "every person for themself" myth.

Crises and Hope

We have a crisis this year that’s separating us more than usual. During this time, I realised that separation and fragmentation is a characteristic of my life - not just when I'm locked down or in hotel quarantine. As restrictions ease, and we meet again face to face, I'm going to work on bringing together some parts of myself that have been separated internally over a lifetime. Not because I am broken, and not just to avoid disease, but because I hope for a richer human experience for myself and others.

If COVID19 passes, we are not crisis free. Environmental, social, economic, and political crises are all on the horizon, largely because of ongoing colonisation and its devastating impact on the planet. Other pandemics will overlap with bushfires and rising seas and floods, as the poor get poorer, the planet heats, people move, and wars break out. We should not be approaching the future with hope that there will be no more crises. The hope I have, is that we may be able to prepare for, confront, and endure the waves of crises - together. In a future where the destructive and oppressive systems we know either keep growing or collapse, it may not be possible to address our needs and desires separately anymore - or rely on single sources for fixes.

I hope our future is less about soothing the symptoms, and more about stepping away from the causes - replacing the current failing systems with critical and holistic alternatives. Since individual circumstances are largely beyond individual control, will we stand together to support each other as we trial alternatives? Will we work in solidarity, acknowledging that because wealth is not distributed fairly, suffering too is unfairly distributed? Or will we continue to try and get back to a normal that benefits some while the rest, and the place we live, are ignored?

I want to engage in and offer more holistic experiences during our ongoing crises, where interdependence and imagination are encouraged, nature (including us) is cared for, and we express from deep within, our joy, our hope, our generosity, and our sadness.

Picture 3.png — “Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.”

Bertrand Russell

The unprofessional queer / November 24, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

If queer theory encourages the use of self, the blurring of our private, public and professional realms, and the rejection of social work’s tendency to see inclusion or assimilation into normalcy as anti-oppressive, would it be unprofessional to apply queer theory to social work practice? If so, who’s ready to let go of the fear of being unprofessional in order to practice queerly?

Applying queer theory to social work has the potential to assist social workers to deconstruct normalcy and draw attention to the “constructedness” of our lives and the events around us. A deeper understanding of queer theory may inspire practitioners to challenge taken-for-granted systems and categories, and play a radical role in people’s liberation. Despite its potential to contribute to emancipatory practice, queer theory has largely been ignored within social work and social work education (Hicks & Jeyasingham, 2016).

This blog post – designed to be a brief, not-too-academic introduction to queer theory and social work is a bit of a scrap book of dot points, quotes and notes – hopefully a queer starting point. I’ll take a look the tension between a queerer practice and social work’s “professionalism” and the tension between queer theory and anti-oppressive practice. I’ll finish with some calls to include queer theory in social work education, and my conclusion that now’s a great time to be an unprofessional queer.

A queer definition

Defining queer "would be a decidedly un-queer thing to do" (Sullivan, 2007, p. 43). Here I will use the term queer not as an umbrella term for LGBTIAQ, but rather as a perspective and politic – “often at odds with the normal” (MacKinnon, 2011, p. 140)

Queer challenges clear-cut notions about sexual identity through blurring the boundaries between identity categories. Queer theory is about being playful with ideas and turning knowledge inside out backward.
(MacKinnon, 2011, p. 140)

Queerness might help us understand: “how we take up sexuality/gender, how these categories come to mean what they do and what institutional practices give meanings to those categories” (Todd & Coholic, 2015, p. 288)

If social workers applied this understanding, what difference could it make? Would there be any male or female tick boxes? Would we expect someone’s gender to remain fixed? Could we change what it is within organisations that might make them unapproachable for anyone outside the norm?

As well as questioning categories associated with sex, gender, and sexuality, queer theory encourages “a critical unpackaging of how we know what we think we know” (Mackinnon, 2011, p. 140). This expansion beyond sex, gender and sexuality is sometimes referred to as “post queer.”

“Queer theory has strengths that make its import into the health disciplines and its export beyond the object of sex/uality highly productive” (Arguello, 2016, p. 237)
“…we think that these perspectives have much to offer the social work discipline, not least because they provide us with tools to challenge neo-liberal regimes and their strangulating effects on social welfare” (Hicks & Jeyasingham, 2016, p. 2358).

Public and Private

“Sexuality is socially constituted as private, embarrassing, taboo, and danger-filled” (Seal, 2019, p. 275) and queer theory questions that construction. Instead of adopting professional boundaries that conform to that construction, a queerer social work practice would see social workers relaxing their boundaries, and employing more use of self, to challenge heteronormativity… and reveal themselves as more human, instead of more professional.

Seal (2019) explains that this separation of private, public and professional actually causes distress for some people:

They try, and largely fail, to hold these multiple identities and constructions concurrently through a separation of private, public, and professional spheres. Through a conscious inarticulation and non-examination of inconsistent heteronormativities, because exploration causes pain, they nevertheless exhibit a fractured double consciousness (Du Bois & Edwards, 1906) that causes them distress and cognitive dissonance. This consciousness allows, and even necessitates the reinscribing of a number of damaging constructions, including the fetishisation of jealousy, the normality of jealousy, the myth of soulmates, and an unsustainable focusing on a partial view of respect in relationships (p. 272).

Perhaps a deeper understanding of queer theory could assist us to heal our “fractured double consciousness” and provide a new perspective in understanding what may be causing distress for the people we work with?

Liberation

There are some tensions between anti-oppressive practice and queer theory (MacKinnon, 2011, p. 139). As an example, queer theory questions the gay and lesbian liberation movement (Sullivan, 2007) that anti-oppressive practitioners may advocate for. This is because, from a queer perspective, marriage can be seen more as assimilation into normal as opposed to liberation from normal. Normal – in this case – is heteronormativity – a force that makes life for queers harder… so why fight to be included in that? Queer theory is concerned that there is “no room for difference” in such liberationist agendas and are suspicious of “universally applicable political goals or strategies” (Sullivan, 2007, p. 40).

Queerness might help us challenge: “the sterile intellectual context of social work where dogma has often ruled in relation to anti-oppressive practice” (Featherstone and Green, 2013, p. 1).

There are other examples of groups fighting for inclusion into systems that fail them :

· Queers attempting to assimilate into heteronormativity or homonormativity

· First nations groups calling for recognition within the constitution

· Diverse groups attempting to assimilate into white Australian culture

· Social workers attempting to assimilate into positivism, managerialism, and neoliberalism

Queerness might help us question:

· neo-liberal, white, national politics and homonormativity (Hicks & Jeyasingham, 2016)

· social work that privileges “scientism, pathology, and expert opinion” (Arguello, 2016, p. 232)

Queering SOCIAL WORK ED

MacKinnon (2011) calls for the introduction of queer theory in to social work education as a way to “open up discussions around a wide range of sexualities in the classroom” (p. 139). Acknowledging post-queer perspectives, Alexander (2005) states that working queer theory in to education “should not focus solely on introducing our many straight students to queer lives and stories; rather… [it] should be an invitation to all students—gay and straight—to think of the ‘constructedness’ of their lives in a heteronormative society (p. 375). On top of seeing the constructedness of their lives, Allen (2015) believes a queer perspective can point out the constructed nature of current events (p. 749).

A QUEER PERSPECTIVE CAN BE ADOPTED BY ANYONE,
REGARDLESS OF SEX, GENDER, or SEXUALITY

Queerness might help us understand: the constructedness of our lives, and of current events

Queer conclusion

So, if social workers adopted all of this – we’d likely be seen as unprofessional. But what does unprofessional really mean? If questioning heteronormativity, white supremacy, and all the other forces we know to be causing inequality and suffering makes us unprofessional, then it’s time to let go of the fear of being unprofessional. We can hold on to the parts of professionalism we love – like our commitment to ethical practice and communication. But we can bring our whole selves in to our work, encourage others to be their whole selves, and instead of trying to fit in or make others fit in, we can say “no thanks” to normalcy and start to imagine the alternative. In my opinion, now’s a really great time to be an unprofessional queer. And remember, you don’t even need to be gay to be queer.

“Queerness is not yet here.
Queerness is an ideality.
Put another way,
we are not yet queer.”
(Muñoz, 2009, p.1)

Reading List

Allen, L. (2015). Queer Pedagogy and the Limits of Thought: Teaching Sexualities at University. Higher Education Research & Development, 34(4), 763–775.

Argüello, T. (2016). Fetishizing the Health Sciences: Queer Theory as an Intervention. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services 28.3: 231-44.

Eng, D. L., Halberstam, J. & Muñoz, J. E. (2005). What’s queer about queer studies now? Social Text, 23(3-4, Fall-Winter), 1-17.

Featherstone, B. & Green, L. (2013). Judith Butler. In Gray, M. and Webb, S. A. (eds), Social Work Theories and Methods: Sage.

Hicks, S. & Jeyasingham, D. (2016). Social Work, Queer Theory and After: A Genealogy of Sexuality Theory in Neo-Liberal Times. British Journal of Social Work 46.8: 2357-373.

MacKinnon, K. (2011). Thinking About Queer Theory in Social Work Education: A Pedagogical (In) Query. Canadian Social Work Review, 28(1), 139–144.

Muñoz, J. E. (2009). Introduction: Feeling Utopia. In Cruising Utopia (pp. 1-18): NYU Press.

Seal, M. (2019). The Interruption of Heteronormativity in Higher Education Critical Queer Pedagogies. 1st Ed: Palgrave Macmillan

Sullivan, N. (2007). A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory. New York University Press

Todd, S. & Coholic, D. (2015). Christian fundamentalism and anti-oppressive practice social work pedagogy: Rethinking the inclusion of fundamentalist beliefs within the queer-positive classroom’, in O’Neill, B. J., Swan, T. A. and Mule ́, N. J. (eds), LGBTQ People and Social Work: Intersectional Perspectives, Toronto, Canadian Scholars’ Press.

love is our ink / July 22, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

Shared experiences at a distance chat #1 with M’ck McKeague

Facing months of lock down, without housemates, an end date, or any more masterchef, is - oh, why not - unprecedented. Learning to master swirl-poached eggs, and propagating a monstera will only amuse me for so long. So, I’ve set myself a task - talk to 11 friends with an interest in participatory or community-engaged arts, to chat about shared experiences at a distance. In particular, shared experiences that might spark creativity, wonder, and connections.

First up, my dear friend M’ck McKeague, who I met in an online forum (before facebook) in the early 2000s. It was the forum of our favourite band, george. We bonded in the “babble place” section, posting and replying to threads like “gay or straight?” , “Feel the LOVE”, “Anyone have any gmail invites left?”, “Poetry Treasure Trunk”, “Big Brother 2005” and “Does anyone know why and or if katie noonan baby has appeared yet?”

As two young queers from regional Queensland, this forum was one of the only spaces where we could be a little more honest and a little more vulnerable. And that wasn’t a dangerous thing to do there, infact, it was embraced. Honestly, where are rougevelvet, mojo-pin, raingbow_punk_fairy, conflakegirl, jesus_christ and Cheeseguy now???

When my high-school georg- inspired alternative pop/rock band, Maestoso (catchy name, right?) toured to THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL in Yeppoon, M’ck and I arranged to meet IRL, and the rest is history.

It makes sense then, that when M’ck and I met on the computer telephone yesterday to chat about shared experiences at a distance that spark creativity, wonder, and connections - early internet forums came up as a tried and tested option. Unpacking why, we talked about how it was a community of people with a shared interest, how it was public but not as exposed as your facebook wall, and how it managed to cultivate a culture of openness and respect. Turns out fans of george were good at that kind of thing.

We brainstormed other times that screen-based activity has made us feel things, and agreed that Masterchef has really nailed that. Other examples from M’ck included Pen15 on Stan, the Hunger Games, and anytime parents are nice to their children on reality tv shows. But this screen activity isn’t a shared experience, so doesn’t achieve that connections part. And while zoom meetings/social catchups were fine for information sharing and collaboration, we agreed there’s not alot of wonder going on there. For that, we thought, we should look at options away from the screen.

M’ck’s go-to was phone calls with friends while walking in nature. We talked about how the combination of movement, the natural environment, and conversation, resulted in a rejuvenating rather than draining experience. M’ck said this combination might help with being a less self-conscious version of ourselves, and might help us create more moments that “can’t be faked” - that is, genuine communication where we’re present, listening, and contributing.

One of the experiments I’d like to do as a part of this investigation is a project called Stargazing with Strangers (working title). Imagine a conversation with a stranger, who’s looking at the same night sky from a different part of the world. In a three-way phone convo, artists facilitate this shared experience, and add their contribution - musical underscoring, questions, poetry… or something. M’ck was keen to trial this. It’s another example of a shared task that’s separate to the conversation, connected to nature, and outside the everyday. Did you know that if aliens are looking at Earth now through their powerful telescopes, they would see dinosaurs because of how far away they are and because of the speed of light? Thank You for that, M’ck. I can imagine you going outside to wave to the aliens who might be spying on you thousands of years in the future. Tell them to hurry up and intervene because we’ve gone too far in the wrong direction here to fix it. Shit - where was I?

In conclusion, M’ck and I have the most rewarding friendship that exists because of a shared experience at a distance. Because of that shared experience, our creativity has been sparked, we’ve experienced (and continued to experience) wonder together, and we developed a friendship that I’m sure the spying aliens of the future will think is cute.

I’ll leave you with this brief one from the Poetry Treasure Chest:

M’ck McKeague is a performance maker, set and costume designer and installation artist currently based in Melbourne. M'ck's work often experiments with non-traditional spaces and reimagines the audience-performance relationship. Dissatisfied with master narratives and the systems and spaces that uphold them, M’ck seeks out collaborative scenographic practices that embrace difference and disrupt privilege in process, form and content.

www.mckeague.com.au

A GARDEN INSTEAD OF A SHITSHOW / July 21, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

After almost four years working for local government, I’m reflecting on my time there to help me close that chapter, and to share some of the things I learnt. The role was part community arts team leader, part community arts producer, part partnerships manager, and part venue hire manager.

BEFORE YOU SOW THE SEEDS, YOU NEED TO PREPARE THE SOIL

Community development arts workers have a way of working that’s based on a set of values. We’re the type to value process over product, lasting relationships over short term transactions, the collective over the individual, caring over controlling… I could go on and on! We try to bring a set of principles into action - like putting First Nations first, keeping things local, thinking about the environmental impact, working towards diversity in all forms, “bottom up” instead of “top down” decision making - just as a few examples. Often, we don’t know we’re using a community development approach - it just seems normal or obvious to us. But, let me tell you - what may be normal or obvious to us may seem like the most bizarre, backwards, risky, or even embarrassing concept to others.

A local government setting provides many challenges for workers adopting community development values and principles. That’s no surprise - it is a government after all - so bureaucracy and hierarchy are to be expected. I entered that space expecting that my approach might not fit in the box - but I hoped I could do some good work there regardless - and, maybe, just maybe, I could have an impact on the organisation too. I won’t go into the times my way of working (proudly) threw a spanner in the works, or list the strategies I developed in attempts to prepare the conditions for community arts to flourish in a new community centre and theatre. There were so many things to work on - and to be honest, there’s still so much more to do.

This process of preparing the conditions for community arts to flourish is what I mean by preparing the soil. It’s the groundwork required for a place to be welcoming, safe, and creative. Ideally, that’s started before the seeds of arts projects or funding opportunities are planted - but those arts projects can also play a role in preparing the soil. This collaborative groundwork is never finished, so as you work, there’s a lot of assessment that needs to happen to choose which seeds we’re ready to plant and which ones are for later. Many enabling factors need to line up before a place supports belonging, inspiration, care, connection - and all those things we hope that the arts might spark.

TAKING A COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT APPROACH TO THE MOST UNLIKELY TASKS

There were plenty of tasks in my role that you wouldn’t expect to apply a community development approach to, from managing room hires, to reporting on activities, to supervising a team, to contributing to the what’s on guide. One thing I challenged myself to do though, was ask how can I make this task a part of the community development I’m trying to do? How can this task be part of preparing the soil? I’d squeeze stories into reporting documents alongside the numbers, find ways to talk about what’s happening not just what’s on, deliver messages to community members through face to face conversations, and facilitate old school town hall style meetings - all attempts at bringing people back into processes.

I know these are the smallest of actions, but these are those normal or obvious ways that allowed me to work closer to my values, even when completing what could have been the most administrative tasks. And, after a few years, I became part of the community. Even if the only thing we all had in common was that we shared space - this is enough to connect us. The rest can come from there.

THE RATIONAL AND THE NON-RATIONAL

Here’s a diagram I like - more so for its content than its graphic design. I’ll add the source when I find it!

The diagram depicts a system with rational and non-rational components. The rational is what you’d expect local government to be good at: structure, strategies, and processes delivered through planning, directing, and controlling. The non-rational half is what you’d expect community arts workers to be good at - relationships, identity, and information, nurtured by maintaining enabling conditions through trust.

The message is: things can only be effective when the human stuff is as well developed as the organisational stuff. This is not easy. Actually, it’s really hard. So hard in fact, that people may prefer to ignore the human stuff completely, and place their trust entirely in the organisational stuff, thinking that more planning, more directing, and more control can fix anything. THAT’S A TRAP.

Because the human system (non-rational) is the enabler that underpins the whole system, it is essential that this human system be developed and be robust and that a deep trust between team members prevails before the elements of the task domain (rational) can work together in an effective way. That is to say, outstanding performance is dependent firstly on the existence of strong personal relationships and trust and secondly on good strategies and processes.

Some of the skills I learnt in local government are around how to get some of that essential non-rational stuff into structures, strategies, and processes. This is classic advocacy type work, where you try to influence policy, assessment criteria, and other existing controlling things, so that the tools that usually exclude, can be used to start including, and building trust. This is a big red flag though - because the danger is you’re just making something oppressive appear less oppressive, OR, you’re just supporting the dominant centre to assimilate more diversity into itself.

Some days I felt like I was making something a little bit better, and on other days, I felt like I was just making things worse by being a part of the problem instead of being part of the alternative to the entire system. This is not a new ethical dilemma, and is part of the ongoing tension between changing the system from within vs changing the system from outside vs engaging with the system as little as possible (except for maybe extracting resources from it) and working on an alternative system instead.

How to work ethically in an unethical world is an ongoing question.

WHITENESS

I’m still reflecting on the ways I operated, as a white person, within an organisation dominated by whiteness, in one of the most culturally diverse neighbourhoods in Australia.

In this setting, I could observe my own fluency in whiteness - my ability to participate in, benefit from, and be respected by structures defined by whiteness. In my opinion, I was at the same time, employed for my ability to participate in that, as well as for my interest in changing that. I questioned myself, and the systems and attitudes that maintained the status quo of white supremacy. I felt uncomfortable / ashamed / disappointed not only with those systems and attitudes, but with my own response to them - my white fragility emerged in quiet ways. I wanted to avoid being complicit, and I also wanted to avoid being a problematic white saviour type. I don’t think it’s a fine line between those two things - I think there is plenty of space in between actually, where I can just do better. I find it useful to have an awareness of those extremes and try and catch myself when I’m approaching either. Feeling comfortable while navigating this is a warning sign.

Towards the end of my time in that environment, it was my tendency to keep the peace and work as a buffer between community and the organisation, or my team and the organisation, that I started to question. On one hand, I was trying to improve relationships and garner respect and support for the team and the community’s work (all part of preparing the soil), and on the other, I was attempting to stop shit hitting the fan, preventing the next shitstorm. But sometimes shit needs to hit the fan, right? Perhaps the next person in my role will be better at that.

QUEERNESS

Just quietly, community development is pretty queer. There’s a lot of not knowing involved, a lot of ambiguity and grey areas, and a lot of fluidity, love, inclusivity, negotiation, and imagination. At its best (I think), it’s radical, anti-capitalist, decolonising practice. It subverts power and norms and exposes alternative ways to be yourself, and alternative ways to be together. There’s also some hope in it. Honestly, my own queerness is what got me through. Queerness prepared me to reveal and hide myself as required for safety. Thanks to queerness, I can take a step back from what I was in, and see how I was tangled up in it. It’s how I can step away with some pride, some disappointment, and some hope all at once. It’s how I can let go and hold on at the same time. All of this is part of my privilege, which has helped me get through, and will help me look forward.

THE NEXT CHAPTER

I’m in lockdown at the moment, which is why I’ve had time for this reflection.

Firstly, I want to catch my breath. I decided to wrap up at work pre-COVID19, and like almost everyone, my plans for the second half of 2020 are in the bin. I’m very grateful during this challenging time that I can return to study for a semester to finish off my masters, and that I have some casual work.

I will return to my own practice - this time as a choice, unlike the first 10 years where it just kinda happened and I didn’t try anything else. I’ll return with a whole new bunch of understandings, a new appreciation for the less hierarchical and more collaborative ways that I’m used to, and a sense of clarity about why I do what I do. I do it to be human and expand my understanding of what that means. I do it for myself, as much as I do it for others. I do it because if we work together to prepare the soil, we might have a garden instead of a shitshow.

Letter to Premier Daniel Andrews RE: Social Housing Lockdowns / July 5, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

Dear Premier Daniel Andrews,

Imagine calling the police because someone was having a heart attack. You wouldn’t. You’d do first aid and call an ambulance.

We need to keep this logic in mind when responding to the detection of COVID19 cases in the Flemington, Kensington, and North Melbourne social housing buildings. If we’re going to attempt to prevent a health issue from getting worse, we need to design a holistic health response.

We need a more caring response, not a more controlling response.

Just because the response needs to happen quickly, and just because the potential harm of not acting is high, it does not mean we need 500 police to arrive at people’s homes unannounced.

I’m sure a number of others have already expressed to you why police are not the right match for this job. I trust you understand that people living in these buildings may experience racism, surveillance, and/or violence by police. Experiences of brutality from authorities may have occurred in Australia and/or overseas. We can deliver health responses in caring ways that do not cause alarm, miscommunication, trauma, or violence.

We need to prepare an alternative response so we’re ready for the next time it’s needed.

500 workers, representing all languages required, could reach 3000 residents in a matter of hours. What would these workers do? Perhaps from the hall, to keep a safe distance, they’d let the residents know that the virus has been detected in the building. They’d share personal protective equipment, share information about the virus and how it’s spread if that was needed, and have a conversation about the specific challenges this might bring up for people so specific needs could be met. Strangers in masks knocking at your door wanting to talk is not ideal - but compared to what we’ve seen - immediate lockdowns, poor communication, and high police presence - it does seem preferable. Of course this response would be complimented by the rent relief you’ve announced, COVID19 testing, delivery of food and supplies, and ongoing cleaning - all possible without police.

Do we have 500 workers standing by for this type of action? Perhaps we didn’t this time. Could this be a possibility next time? Could they be on-call? They could be social workers, but I don’t necessarily mean professionals who’ve managed to navigate university degrees - I mean people who care. People without guns, cuffs, and pepper spray. Many community members would raise their hand to take this role, myself included.

We know that restricting people’s rights (like movement and self-determination) in order to ensure other rights (like health) are upheld is dangerous territory. Today, people inside the buildings have listed their demands; among them, they want to maintain their right to movement and they want to get tested for COVID - without police presence in their homes or at testing sites.

I am writing to echo these demands, and to encourage you to consider an alternative to the police in similar future scenarios. It is not acceptable that those most negatively affected by economic inequality lose the most rights during this pandemic. There will be other similar situations in our future. Prepare now so the next response can be better.

Sincerely,

Nathan Stoneham

All signs point towards an end / May 28, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

Today I have my first meeting with Jim Ife.

He said we’re likely doomed - that all signs are pointing towards an end. Whether this will be a slow or fast ending is yet to be known. We can not continue to live the way we are living, if we want to survive.

Jim is the author of Community Development in an Uncertain World, a book I have turned to many times in my social work study, and in my work as a community arts worker. I have approached him to mentor me as I return to independent practice during the covid era.

When Jim replied to my first email to him, his e-mail signature read:

We human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to hell [Kafka]

And:

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear [Gramsci]

These reminded me of a previous mentor of mine, the late Roger Rynd, who also placed quotes in his email signatures, including:

All of us are working together for the same end; some of us knowingly and purposefully, others unconsciously. Even in our sleep we are at work. Aurelius

Something that is revealing itself to me, is my interest in work that accepts an end is approaching. A few years back I decided to spend some time with Darren O’Donnell at Mammalian Diving Reflex, whose tagline is ideal entertainment for the end of the world.

Darren’s book, Social Acupuncture, opens with the line “The world is a collapsing shit factory.” Jim’s book’s introduction says “the world is characterised by increasing instability - whether ecological, economic, political, social or cultural - and existing institutions seem only able to provide solutions which in the long term, and even in the short term, only make things worse.”

It seems those thinking about the end, are considering work that’s social. It makes me think about the purpose of our work. Is it that we want to delay the end, and make the ending more fair?

Jim positioned creativity and the work of artists as central to our imagining of a better future, not something that should exist on the margins. The Cultural Development network list “positive future inspired” as a potential outcome of arts and cultural activity, describing it as “the feeling that you have what you need from your community to be hopeful and confident about your future.” A future where that is true for everyone is worth working towards.

Jim let me know about the Dark Mountain Project. I have, bit by bit, been reading the manifesto this week, and it is really something. This year I have been thinking about moving back to the mountain where I grew up, and nothing affirms that plan more than that manifesto.

I wrote this a couple of weeks in to isolation… and added the final line tonight:

After this
I'll put all my secrets out on the lawn
kiss the strangers
and run around in a cape.

After this
I'll smear the stamen of a lily on my face
eat the juiciest peaches
and jump in the dam
ride down the hills with my hands off the handlebars,
howling, sticky, cold

After this it'll be less about later and more about now
less about me and more about us
we'll walk across that log over the creek
sit behind the waterfall
fearlessly holding hands
knowing after this is the ending

Re-minding queerness / October 23, 2017 by Nathan Stoneham

Image by Sarah Walker, in The Sydney Morning Herald

Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History of Popular Music was the radical social work intervention I didn’t know I needed. For this white queer, it was transformational, and the first time that I’ve experienced art that left me feeling healed.

Over twenty-four hours, as Taylor Mac performed songs popular in America during the last 240 years, I saw queerness represented in ways that filled me with pride, hope and courage. I entered a little lost, a little insecure, carrying my own white guilt, internalised homophobia and shame. I left knowing that who I am and the way that I think is valid, and necessary, in order for us keep making changes in this world. In this “art show” and “radical fairy realness ritual” – Taylor Mac was there to remind us of things “forgotten, dismissed or buried” – and for me, it was my own queerness and potential agency that I needed to reconnect with.

From the beginning, when Taylor Mac and Wurundjuri elder, Aunty Diane Kerr made heartfelt offerings to each other, I knew this production was going to abandon the status quo and honour humanity. Aunty Diane presented a handmade gift, and welcomed Taylor to country. Taylor Mac offered an apology, both for the cruelty that judy’s* ancestors inflicted, and for the ways that this cruelty still may manifest in judy’s interactions today.

Colonialism and the global capitalist economy were reoccurring themes throughout the performance as we witnessed Mac’s subjective history, spanning early women’s lib movements, American Civil War, immigration, WW1, the depression, queer riots and so much more. We needed twenty four hours to deal with this content, and the result was an intersectional acknowledgement of the past, honouring the communities of activists and queer thinkers who have brought about social change despite white supremacy, minstrel songs, temperance choirs and perfectionist assholes having a bourgeois crisis.

Right now we’re posting our marriage equality surveys and being flooded with mainstream gay narratives – narratives that present anti-intersectional versions of equality, promote normative coupling, and ignore the oppressive forces of capitalism. You’d be forgiven for thinking that;

...marriage is not only the natural but the only desired outcome of decades, really, centuries of queer existence. Source

Of course I voted yes, but I personally reject the notion of assimilation in to the heteronormative institution of marriage – just as I reject participation in the military and reject the prison industrial complex, or any approach that values control over care, or property over people.

To be honest, I’d buried my queerness a little recently… I’ve been homo AF but not so queer. Perhaps the queerness was a little forgotten, buried or dismissed by the marriage equality campaign, my fear of offending others, my disconnection from queer networks due to moving interstate, entering a monogamous relationship, and/or my overexposure to conservative views at a new workplace. And then, Taylor says: “I want to be able to get married so I can say fuck you marriage” and my heart explodes. “We’re not all Ellen!” judy says, and we cheer together – for longer than you’d expect – savouring the moment amongst community who'd been brought together. Taylor says something along the lines of “Maybe once you have gay marriage you can deal with your refugee crisis” and I remember that:

When we craft a political agenda based only on one form of oppression (sexual orientation) while minimizing other forms of oppression and privilege, we bolster our own privilege, and reinforce the structural disadvantage others suffer. S ource

Taylor segregates the entire audience, rearranges us so that the people of colour have front row seats. We share intimate experiences with strangers of the same gender. Straight white men are emasculated. Dikes are honoured. Promiscuity and anonymous sex is normalised. I feel represented as Taylor shares stories of sex in back rooms, open relationships, interracial sex accompanied by critical self-reflection and an existential crisis, and other experiences that deviate from the heteronormative narrative and the gay mainstream narrative. In one moment there’s Christian bashing, and in the next, we pray as a didgeridoo is played. We pray that those seeking freedom don’t continue to lock others up in their fight for freedom.

This intervention – this performance art show – this 24 hour radical process drama - this therapy - reminded me of my own queerness in a time when neoliberalism leaves little space for ambiguity, imperfection, dialogue or collectivism. Taylor facilitated my healing, introduced me to my shame, and in the process - honoured the past, honoured the present, and encouraged us to “dream the culture forward”. I met myself again, and I was full of love, and I’d missed me.

*Taylor Mac’s gender is performer and preferred pronoun is judy

Re-tell 2014 / February 16, 2015 by Nathan Stoneham

There is a love story that re-tells itself over and over in my life and in the work that I do. In it, nobody falls out of love. People leave people that they don't want to leave, and lose people they don't want to lose... but they do not fall out of love.

I began 2014 by preparing to tell this story through "지하 Underground" - the show I made with Jeremy Neideck and some of our closest friends over three years ago. If you haven't seen it, it's about love transcending the percieved boundaries of language, culture and gender - and anything else that attempts to seperate us; time, distance, heartache. Teams of helpers prepared 지하 Underground's set. Hundreds of Aunty Deb's wooden fish were attached to one of Grandad's old trawling nets in my backyard. We installed the venue and I went to the place I like to be - to my keys at the side of the stage, out of the spotlight for most of the time. From there, I loved as hard as I could, and I hope you felt it.

I was living under a big old dusty Albion Queenslander in a granny flat type situation with a dysfunctional ensuite. I'd fallen for someone too hard too fast, and it made me nervous.

A smaller part of the 지하 Underground team got back to work on another project which was supposed to be a simple little show... The 떡볶이 Box (The Dokboki Box). It turned in to quite a complicated project and before long I had food and liquor licenses spanning two states and I was a certified food safety supervisor with RSA training. The love story told itself again, in a new way, with Korean street food, original live music and karaoke. This time it was tied up in the political situation we face in Australia and Korea. The 떡볶이 Box (The Dokboki Box) opened in Melbourne for Next Wave Festival then went home for a season at Metro Arts.

It's amazing the lengths we'll go to tell a little story - or rather, create spaces that encourage audiences to listen... not just to us, but to each other. We do it in the hope that people come together in a meaningful way. We do it for companionship. We do it to model a way of being together that feels better than the way we are together now. To give us something to hope for. A green cheese moon. I am forever grateful to M'ck McKeague, Candice Diana, Kit Tran and Younghee Park for all they gave. By that time in the year I was a bit heartbroken, so like The 떡볶이 Box itself - things appeared warm and fun on the surface, but beneath that, there was a sense of hopelessness.

My Grandfather passed away. I will remember him for his intelligence and wit. I saw myself in a photo of him at the funeral. I'll never forget the day he spoke to me about "Dog Tags For Gays" - Mum and Grandmother were outside in the garden, and he seemed proud.

For the 11th time, I flew to Korea. Chris and I went to the baseball, drank "Jack-cokes" and "long-teas", played darts and frequently returned to Seoul's Homo Hill where we met seven years ago. Back then I had a crush on his Mongolian friend and we all bonded over ox bone and potato soup after a night of drinking glowing gin-tonics under the blacklights and green lasers of a trashy danceclub called "Why Not" (which is now a wine lounge much to my disappointment). Hara and I flew to Jeju Island, where we avoided the big red tourist buses, stayed in cute guesthouses by the sea, swam under waterfalls, ate raw fish, drank peanut makoli and got naked in sparkling spring water that tingled you in funny places.

I facilitaed Lenine Bourke's "The Walking Neighbourhood" in Seoul, with my new friend, Charlye. Children guided adults through winding alleyways and busy streets to second hand bookstores, ancient doors, street vendors, wooden owls and more. I caught the fast train to Gwangju to say hi to Mammalian Diving Reflex who were in town. Then I flew straight to Darwin to do "The Walking Neighbourhood" again in Bagot. It was my second time in this community with this project, and I'm proud of what we made there and the lessons I learned. I was challenged on many levels. Big shout out to Britt, Soraya, Libby, Ms. Kellie, Kali, Jaydn and Darwin Festival who just GOT IT. And thanks Lenine for trusting me with this baby.

It was straight to Sydney after that, where I spent time with my mentor, Rosie Dennis and her company, Urban Theatre Projects. I watched Rosie collaborate on a new theatre piece with a woman in her 70s, attended workshops where Rosie planned a democatric garden with a diverse group from Western Sydney and sat in on company meetings to get an insight in to how a socially engaged art organisation runs. I could imagine myself leading a company like that, and started to imagine myself in a role like that. This project by project lifestyle that I've been enjoying for 9 years offers many adventures and concentrated connections... But I'm tired, and tired of leaving people I don't want to leave. Occasionally I find myself dreaming of staying in one place for a while. You know, settling down a bit... joining a gym and maybe even attempting to maintain some kind of conventional relationship. Then I do something like apply for a grant to spend three months in Mongolia (I'm there now). While in Sydney I caught up in real life with all the babes on the internet. Including one who I'd often admired from afar outside "Why Not".

The moment we'd all been waiting for: 지하 Underground went to Korea. In the basement of city hall for HiSeoul Fetsival, we followed Coconut Princess's journey from a remote island to the city, and met the characters he fell in love with along the way. In some ways, you could describe Korean society as quite conservative, but this show - with all its queer characters and themes, was embraced wholeheartedly. All tickets were snapped up before we knew they were available. I was called Silver Lady in the street - a highlight of the year. Big love and thanks to Dave Sleswick for producing this work and believing in it despite how difficult it is to mount. Fiona MacDonald joined the team as production manager and I can not thank her enough for everything she did. She was our binoculars, our compass and our pearls.

I returned home to Brisbane and began an artist in residence project at Kurilpa Community Child Care Centre with Imaginary Theatre. Verena and I spent seven weeks with the Kindergaren children creating a Play Museum. What a gift to have the time and space to really practice what we preach - collaborating with children and communities, responding to their ideas and resourcing their play.

It was time for a holiday. I returned to my Mum's place on the mountain, rested, visited Woodford Folk Festival and The Falls Festival in Byron Bay with the Albion housemates. I said goodbye to 2014. The hard parts are part of the love story, but only for a moment, and their time has passed. All that remains is all the love that I've never fallen out of.

2015 is jam packed until August. Then it will be September and I'll be 29 and it will be time to settle down, surely.

2023 & THE SELBE RIVER / January 1, 2024 by Nathan Stoneham

INTRODUCTION: HOMO HILL TO HANZO; 16 years between drinks

NOMADS NOT MOMOS

COLD CRISIS

THE GOLDEN MAGPIE OF DEMOCRACY

PINA COLADAS AND LOGIC FRAMEWORKS

ORDINARY THINGS PICTURED ABOVE:

EXTRAORDINARY THINGS:

PICS FROM A TRANS MONGOLIAN RAIL Trip to Sukhbaatar NEAR THE RUSSIAN BORDER

Hello STRANGER

All Aussie Adventure

BACK TO THE SELBE

THE WATER WAY

ART ON THE WING; Response to MARKET MARKET / October 3, 2023 by Nathan Stoneham

DotS SO FAR APART THEY’RE STARS.

We contrive to do it.

The White-breasted Woodswallow and I.

Care’s not all cuddles and community.

The build-up.

Extraordinary creatures.

Mongolian Summer Trip, 2023 / August 6, 2023 by Nathan Stoneham

Gandantegchinlen Monastery

Yoliin Am

Yoliin Am

West of Dalanzadgad

Bayanzag

Havsgait Valley petroglyphs

Moltsog Els Dunes

HIGHWAY REST AREA

Amarbayasgalant Monastery

Amarbayasgalant Monastery

Amarbayasgalant Monastery

Khuvsgul Lake

Khuvsgul Lake

Khuvsgul Lake

Ulaanbaatar

The bottom drawer of my brain; Reflection on 2022. / January 4, 2023 by Nathan Stoneham

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THIS SHIT?

Prayer to be expelled / February 9, 2022 by Nathan Stoneham

I WILL NOT PREACH WHAT I PRACTICE / February 3, 2022 by Nathan Stoneham

CONTRACT OF ENROLMENT BETWEEN STUDENT AND SCHOOL / February 1, 2022 by Nathan Stoneham

STUDENT’S DECLARATION:

Iso, art, & crises; Reflection on 2020 / December 6, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

Iso in Melbourne & Mongolia

Netflix and chill from afar

Aesthetically enriching shared experiences at a distance

Quarantine

Critical Holism

Crises and Hope

The unprofessional queer / November 24, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

A queer definition

Queerness might help us understand: “how we take up sexuality/gender, how these categories come to mean what they do and what institutional practices give meanings to those categories” (Todd & Coholic, 2015, p. 288)

Public and Private

Liberation

Queerness might help us challenge: “the sterile intellectual context of social work where dogma has often ruled in relation to anti-oppressive practice” (Featherstone and Green, 2013, p. 1).

Queerness might help us question:

Queering SOCIAL WORK ED

Queerness might help us understand: the constructedness of our lives, and of current events

Queer conclusion

Reading List

love is our ink / July 22, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

Shared experiences at a distance chat #1 with M’ck McKeague

A GARDEN INSTEAD OF A SHITSHOW / July 21, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

BEFORE YOU SOW THE SEEDS, YOU NEED TO PREPARE THE SOIL

TAKING A COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT APPROACH TO THE MOST UNLIKELY TASKS

THE RATIONAL AND THE NON-RATIONAL

WHITENESS

QUEERNESS

THE NEXT CHAPTER

Letter to Premier Daniel Andrews RE: Social Housing Lockdowns / July 5, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

All signs point towards an end / May 28, 2020 by Nathan Stoneham

Re-minding queerness / October 23, 2017 by Nathan Stoneham

Re-tell 2014 / February 16, 2015 by Nathan Stoneham

INTRODUCTION:
HOMO HILL TO HANZO; 16 years between drinks