First Nations Futures

24 Aug 2026
06:30pm - 07:45pm
General Admission: $10 (+booking fee) / BLAKTIX: Free
The Capitol, 113 Swanston St, Melbourne

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In partnership with Now or Never and Yirramboi, RMIT presents First Nations Futures, a conversation exploring how new worlds are imagined into being through storytelling, visual language and acts of creative resistance. Featuring Allara Briggs Pattison, Axel Garay, April Phillips and Hayden Ryan, hosted by Amanda Haskard.

What does a whole new world look like when it's shaped by First Nations artists?

This conversation explores how new worlds are imagined into being through storytelling, visual language and acts of creative resistance. Across evolving practices and future-facing ideas, we consider how First Nations artists expand our understanding of what is possible: holding past, present and future in the same frame.

Bringing together contemporary First Nations voices, the panel looks at how AI and digital realms are reshaping creative practice. As artists move through these shifting technologies, they navigate questions of authorship, control and cultural knowledge in increasingly complex digital spaces.

Speakers

Hayden Ryan, a Yuin–Walbunja sound artist, researcher and RMIT School of Design PhD candidate whose practice uses spatial sound to explore Indigenous identity, history, and relationships to place.
Axel Garay, an emerging multidisciplinary artist with strong connections to his ancestral homelands in the Eastern Torres Strait (Mer), Puerto Rico & Malaysia. His practice forms a constellation of photography (specifically alternative photographic processes), digital video, sound, installation and performance. Axel is currently completing a PhD in Art at RMIT.
April Phillips, a Wiradjuri-Scottish woman of the Galari / Kalari peoples, living and working in regional Australia. Her art practice is cemented in futurism and media arts; as lead artist / director working across moving images, illustration, 3D assets, AR research, and photogrammetry.
Allara Briggs-Pattison, a staunch Yorta Yorta artist – songwoman, bassist, producer and sound-designer. Living on Wurundjeri, Woi-Wurrung Country for almost 15 years, her motivation is driven by a hope of healing and self-determination.

Host

Amanda Haskard is a Gunaikurnai curator working across film, contemporary visual art, and sound. Her curatorial work explores themes of sovereignty, resistance, and collective action, grounded in collaborative processes, experimentation, and cross-disciplinary approaches. Amanda is currently Curator, Indigenous at MUMA (Monash University Museum of Art).

Presented by Now or Never with RMIT University and Yirramboi

Upcoming events

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Ballet of Lights: Cinderella in a Sparkling Show

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Hear Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela and Christian Esguerra speak at the Q & A after the film screening! A nation's quiet resistance plays out at sea, where everyday Filipino fishermen become unwitting frontliners in a geopolitical storm.

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

Learn more about our commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

First Nations Futures