From the 10th to the 19th of February 2025, team members Dr. Sarah Jane Jones and Holly O’Neil travelled to Melbourne for the annual Posthuman Summer Lab. The interdisciplinary laboratory explores the intersections between posthuman methods and First Peoples knowledges, in consultation with Boonwurrung elder N’arweet Professor Carolyn Briggs AM, and Professor Rosi Braidotti.
The lab itself was led by Dr Fiona Hillary (RMIT School of ARt) and Dr Troy Innocent (RMIT School of Design/ future play lab) and was a Planetary Civics Initiative. Over the lab, we developed place-based, collaborative projects to expand posthuman methods, to be published in a second book under the laboratory’s output.
Throughout our time in Melbourne, we experimented with how to enact socially responsible and ethically considerate methodologies to explore posthuman scholarship and Indigenous knowledges. In Holly’s collaboration, the group reflected on the colonial and human-centric field of mapping, deciding to propose an alternative way to consider mapping in ways that might celebrate and represent multiple perspectives, temporalities, and knowledges.
In Dr. Sarah Jane Jones’ collaboration, the group explored experimental and non-linear methodologies around games in order to encourage deeper connection with place and Country. Utilising the groups many skillsets, such as coding, graphic design, play, and place-making, the game will provide essential ways to think about how we live on and with Country.
The outcome of these methodological experiments will be available in the second Posthuman Summer Lab book publication.
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