Centre for Creative and Cultural Leadership

Stories, counter-stories and place

We explore how stories shape identity, memory, and place. Through writing, journalism, documentary practice, performance, visual culture and emerging media, we examine how communities make sense of the past, respond to the present, and imagine different futures. We are interested in both dominant narratives and counter-stories, and in how storytelling can foster belonging, challenge injustice and deepen public understanding. Place and Country are central to this work, informing our commitment to First Nations knowledges, community histories, and diverse cultural perspectives.

We ask:

• What stories need to be told, by whom and why?
• How can counter-stories contribute to more just and inclusive futures?
• How do stories shape our relationship to place and Country?
• How can emerging technologies create new possibilities for storytelling and shared understanding?

Members

Researchers work across creative writing, journalism, documentary practice, screen media, performance, visual culture and public history to explore how stories shape culture, public life and collective futures.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

• Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing
• Goal 4: Quality Education
• Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
• Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
• Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Our projects

Storying country

Storying Country is a collaborative writing project bringing together Anthony McKnight, Catherine Moyle, Catherine McKinnon, Christine Howe, Joshua Lobb and Shady Cosgrove to explore how storytelling can deepen relationships with Country. Developed through a Bundanon residency, the project investigates how stories emerge through listening to place, learning from First Nations knowledges, and attending to the more-than-human world.

Audio storytelling as methodology: proper distance in scholarly communication

In Audio Storytelling as Methodology: Proper Distance in Scholarly Communication, Benjamin Ball explores podcasting and radio documentary as tools for research, arguing that audio storytelling can generate knowledge, foster reflection and deepen public understanding. Drawing on the production of the ABC Radio National documentary#City#Life, the project demonstrates how narrative audio can connect academic research with broader audiences and create meaningful engagement with complex social issues.

Women's Rights Advocacy in the Illawarra

In the Women's Rights Advocacy in the Illawarra project, Ellie Crookes and Emma Darragh draw on the Women Illawarra archives to recover the histories of women's activism in the region from the 1970s to the present, exploring how storytelling, advocacy and collective action have shaped social change and contemporary debates about gender and justice. 

Lost in Shanghai

Written by renowned Australian journalist Jane Hutcheon and co-directed by celebrated storyteller William Yang, Lost in Shanghai weaves personal history, archival images, and Terumi Narushima’s evocative music composition and performance explore story, counter-story, and place. Through Hutcheon’s search for her mother’s past, the work recovers histories often overlooked in dominant narratives, while Narushima’s score deepens the emotional connection to Shanghai as a place of memory, identity, and belonging.

Creative production and cultural reception

We explore how culture is made, shared, and experienced. From television, film, music, journalism, visual art and performance to social media, participatory cultures and emerging technologies, we investigate how cultural forms shape public values, identities and everyday life. Our research examines artistic production, cultural participation, audiences, digital media and cultural policy, generating new insights into how culture is created, distributed and received. Beyond economic measures, we investigate the social, civic and environmental value of culture and its contribution to wellbeing, belonging, democratic participation and community resilience.

We ask:

• What is culture, and how is it created?
• How do cultural works reflect and shape social values?
• How are cultural forms produced, distributed and experienced?
• How can arts, media and communication contribute to more equitable futures?

Members

Researchers work across creative and performing arts, media and communication, and cultural policy to understand how culture is produced, circulated and valued.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

• Goal 5: Gender Equality
• Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Goal 9: Industry Innovation and Infrastructure
• Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Our projects

Migrants, Television and Australian Stories: A new history

In Migrants, Television and Australian Stories: A New History, Kate Darian-Smith, Sue Turnbull, Sukhmani Khorana and Kyle Harvey examine how television has shaped migrant experiences, identities and representations in Australia. The project explores the role of screen culture in reflecting and influencing ideas of belonging, multiculturalism and national identity, revealing television's significance as a site of cultural participation and public storytelling. The book was Highly Commended for the Australian History Prize at the 2026 NSW History Awards.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

In The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Renée Middlemost explores the enduring cultural significance of the iconic Australian film, examining its place within queer cinema, popular culture and audience reception. The project investigates how the film continues to shape conversations about identity, representation, fandom and belonging across generations and communities.

ASPERA 2025 Conference, Experiments in Screen

Organised by screen media scholar and filmmaker Aaron Burton, the ASPERA 2025 Conference, Experiments in Screen, explores how innovation and creative risk-taking shape screen production, education, and research. Framed through cultural production and reception, the conference examines how new modes of storytelling, media technologies, and diverse creative practices influence both the making of screen culture and the ways audiences engage with and interpret it.

The Web Series Experiment: Valuing Web Series

Led by Sue Turnbull and an international team of researchers, The Web Series Experiment: Valuing Web Series (an ARC Linkage Project) investigated the cultural, creative and industrial significance of web series as an emerging screen format. Working with web festivals in Melbourne, Toronto and Marseille, the project explored how digital storytelling is transforming screen production, audience engagement and cultural participation, while challenging traditional ideas about value in the screen industries.

Speculative futures for a secure planet

We explore how arts, culture and interdisciplinary research can help communities respond to environmental, social and technological change. Working with collaborators across fields including engineering, science, economics, geography and psychology, we use creative practice to imagine alternative futures, challenge assumptions and generate new possibilities for action.

We ask:

• How can speculative creative practice inspire new technologies, social systems and ways of living?
• How can cultural leadership strengthen community agency and inform public policy?
• How can we reimagine the present to create more just, equitable and sustainable futures?

Members

Researchers from the arts, humanities, media and communication, and the sciences work alongside collaborators and communities to explore future-oriented responses to social, environmental and technological challenges.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

• Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
• Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
• Goal 13: Climate Action
• Goal 14: Life Below Water
• Goal 15: Life on Land
• Goal 17: Partnerships for the Goals

Our projects

Storyland theatre adaptation

In collaboration with Merrigong Theatre Company and Aunty Barbara Nicholson, Catherine McKinnon's Storyland is being adapted into a large-scale outdoor theatre work that traces interconnected First Nations and multicultural stories across the Illawarra from first contact to imagined future worlds. Presented on Country, the project explores storytelling, place, cultural memory and our relationship with the land across past, present and future. 

Pootopia 

Led by Lucas Ihlein and Kim Williams, Pootopia! brings together artists, scientists, engineers and economists to explore how creative practice can reimagine waste, sustainability and resource use. Through public participation - such as at festivals - and experimental design, the project invites communities to imagine alternative environmental futures.

Alchemical Worlds

Created by Agnieszka Golda and Jo Law in collaboration with scientists, engineers and filmmakers, Alchemical Worlds brings together contemporary art, climate science and materials science to explore the interconnectedness of Earth's ecosystems. Through installations, textiles, animation and film, the project investigates climate change, material ecologies and the relationships between human and non-human worlds, inviting audiences to imagine more sustainable futures.