The Wheeler Centre

Three young people from different faiths – Amal Ibrahim, Nevo Zisin and Brooke Rutherford – join Fatima Measham to discuss the role religion plays in their lives. Can religious institutions change the way they talk to young people? How does religious faith enrich the lives of young Australians? How is faith tested or altered during adolescence and young adulthood? And how does faith intersect with questions of race, gender and sexuality?

Fatima Measham, Amal Ibrahim, Nevo Zisin and Brooke Rutherford at the Wheeler Centre

In 2001, 19% of people aged under 24 identified as not religious. By 2016, the figure had increased to 35%. We're losing our religion – fast. What might we be losing along with it? And what's it like to be a young believer in an increasingly secular society?

For this conversation, we brought together three young people from different faiths – Amal Ibrahim, Nevo Zisin and Brooke Rutherford – to discuss the role religion plays in their lives.

Can religious institutions change the way they talk to young people? How does religious faith enrich the lives of young Australians? How is faith tested or altered during adolescence and young adulthood? And how does faith intersect with questions of race, gender and sexuality?

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In this short, special episode – to mark the launch of Clean, the latest edition of Notes – we bring you 'Hygiene Fidelity'. Non-fiction writer and art student CB Mako remembers the cleanest room in the cleanest ward of the Royal Children’s Hospital. Read by the author themselves, this piece of memoir also coincides with Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

In this short, special episode – to mark the launch of Clean, the latest edition of Notes – we bring you 'Hygiene Fidelity'. Non-fiction writer and art student CB Mako remembers the cleanest room in the cleanest ward of the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Read by the author themselves, this piece of memoir also coincides with Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Read the story here

NoteHygiene Fidelity / Health, medicine & psychology

Guest post by CB Mako

12 Sep 2019

This episode was recorded and produced by Scott Limbrick and Jon Tjhia. Sophie Quick edited the original story.

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With host Wes Snelling, a panel of comedians and educators – Steph Tisdell, Meg Upton, Patti Fawcett and Evan Watts – discuss mentoring and directing, comedy as a learning tool and its place in the school curriculum.

Wes Snelling, Steph Tisdell, Patti Fawcett, Meg Upton and Evan Watts at the Wheeler Centre

Are ‘funny bones’ something you’re born with, or can they grow with time?

In partnership with Melbourne International Comedy Festival, we look at ‘Nature vs Nurture’ in comedy. Schools around the country are now using comedy as an educational tool to improve literacy and confidence, and to explore different points of view. How can comedy help us learn? And what else can it teach?

With host Wes Snelling, our panel of comedians and educators – Steph Tisdell, Meg Upton, Patti Fawcett and Evan Watts – discuss mentoring and directing, comedy as a learning tool and its place in the school curriculum.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

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Appearing for the first time in Melbourne for our Mayhem series, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah speaks with Areej Nur about his six years of writing, workshopping and rewriting Friday Black – and what comes next.

Areej Nur and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah at the Athenaeum Theatre — Photo: Jon Tjhia

Endorsed by the likes of Roxane Gay, Colson Whitehead and George Saunders – and by the New York Times bestseller list – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a star on the rise.

The 27-year-old African American author made his debut last year with Friday Black, a mind-bending and provocative collection of short stories about consumerism, race, technology and the violence of the modern world. By turns absurdly surreal and brutally recognisable, and often humming with dark humour, the book’s stories coincide with many of our moment’s most urgent issues; Adjei-Brenyah describes them as concerned with ‘problems inherent to the project of America’.

Appearing for the first time in Melbourne for our Mayhem series, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah speaks with Areej Nur about his six years of writing, workshopping and rewriting Friday Black – and what comes next.

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Gavin McIntyre and Brian Pickles are two ‘bio-neers’ whose work is at the forefront of the new mushroom movement. McIntyre is co-founder and chief scientist at the New York-based biofabrication company, Ecovative, where he’s developing fungal mycelium products to replace plastics, wood, leather and even bricks. Pickles is an ecologist at the University of Reading and part of a pioneering research team that is unlocking the secrets of the mysterious symbiotic system known as mycorrhiza. He has found that trees can communicate, thanks to underground mushroom networks, which connect trees at their roots. At the Wheeler Centre, Vanessa Toholka joins McIntyre and Pickles to discuss the implications of their discoveries and inventions, as they make the case for a fungal future.

Vanessa Toholka, Gavin McIntyre and Brian Pickles at the Wheeler Centre

Mushrooms, it seems, have some uncanny properties. Fungi are more closely related to humans than plants, and if we can work with our fungal cousins, we might find a way to reduce waste – and perhaps even salvage our planet.

Gavin McIntyre and Brian Pickles are two ‘bio-neers’ whose work is at the forefront of the new mushroom movement. McIntyre is co-founder and chief scientist at the New York-based biofabrication company, Ecovative, where he’s developing fungal mycelium products to replace plastics, wood, leather and even bricks. Pickles is an ecologist at the University of Reading and part of a pioneering research team that is unlocking the secrets of the mysterious symbiotic system known as mycorrhiza. He has found that trees can communicate, thanks to underground mushroom networks, which connect trees at their roots.

At the Wheeler Centre, Vanessa Toholka joins McIntyre and Pickles to discuss the implications of their discoveries and inventions, as they make the case for a fungal future.

Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.