Travelling to a utopia: Auroville, India
Do you believe that a society can exist with perfect human unity? Well, I’ve just returned from a community founded on this intention. My month in India was one of the most challenging of my life and one of the most transformative. Auroville was founded in 1968 by the Mother…
Happy 2023! A reflection on 2022
It is wonderful to enter 2023 without the COVID-19 boundaries that wrapped up early 2022. I’ve just returned from a music festival teeming with people, and it was something of a 2020 fever dream! The festival was a fitting way to celebrate after finishing my first degree (Journalism and Media…
Documentary Short – Charging the Red Desert – Press Kit
Logline: A filmmaker travels through the outback in an electric vehicle to test the new charging infrastructure. The trip doesn’t go to plan and reveals if Australia is really ready for the new era of transportation. Synopsis: Just 3% of Australia’s cars sold in 2021 were electric, compared to 18% in…
Quality journalism in the digital age: the evolution and opportunities for innovations
A research project by Eve Cogan with the University of Technology Sydney. Introduction and Research Focus Recent literature confirms what those working in journalism have recently experienced: the rise of digital media has irreversibly changed the industry. Over 3000 Australian journalism jobs have been lost since 2011 (Dawson et al.,…
A hopeful ecofeminist ecology in Mad Max: Fury Road
Studying culture at the University of Technology Sydney gave me a chance to explore this iconic Australian dystopia film with regard to some of my favourite topics: environmentalism and feminism. If you don’t mind the academic language, hopefully, you find it as fascinating as I did! Applying an ecofeminist critique…
Academia meets journalism: my internship with The Conversation
It’s bad timing that as I begin my career, journalists are some of the least trusted but most widely read professionals. Conversely, academics are some of the most trusted yet least understood. Australian news publication, The Conversation, confronts this problem – as I’ve experienced interning with them for the last…
Who Gives a Crap about Toilet Paper?
The complex system of toilet paper production and consumption is not something most people consider, but it has a monumental impact on our health, wellbeing and environment. The average toilet paper roll uses half a kilo of wood and 140 litres of water (Statista, 2018). What’s more, each Australian uses…
Fireworks over Zoom: Goodbye 2021
Connection was not what I expected to feel as I sat alone this year New Year’s Eve in covid close contact isolation. But, as I live-streamed Sydney’s fireworks from my laptop, I did feel connected. The pillowy booms through my speakers were echoed by the sounds of fireworks exploding over…
Cultural Identity in Films of the Indigenous Pacific
Amid rising prominence of the Indigenous-focused Fourth Cinema, the people of Aotearoa and Pasifika have become influential contributors, creating films that not only provide critical perspectives on their postcolonial identities, but also celebrate their cultures and differences. This depth is evident in the film Vai (2019), which was collaboratively directed by nine…
Dada News
How much faith do you have in facts? This experimental video artwork, Dada News, invites audiences to question modern news media. The work is bookended by a man in front of a screen – a pastiche of Nam June Paik’s TV Buddha, engaging similar questions about enlightenment in a modern…
Women, Warfare and Whispers in the Wind
Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow (2016) Babak Anvari’s debut feature film Under the Shadow (2016) is a spine-chilling allegory of the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, which powerfully adds nuance to the ways women are represented on global screens. Anvari initially faced resistance when he pitched this Farsi-language script, set in Tehran…
‘Gov 2.0’ on the Rise: How this Beachside Community is Adjusting
Coogee local, Delia Harrington, used to complain to herself when she noticed an overflowing bin at the beach. Now, she reaches for her phone and opens an app. “It’s an empowering idea – just snapping a photo, sending it through to Randwick Council, and getting a notification when it’s solved.”…