Queen Victoria Gardens

A pond-side podcast about biracial belonging in the arts, recorded live

Maria Birch-Morunga is a Māori/Pakehā facilitator and craft queen. Kate Robinson is an Iranian/Australian family violence lawyer and artist. Together, they’re two biracial women who are endlessly fascinated by the juggling of cultures, identities, and family gossip that can come with being mixed-race. Their podcast Being Biracial is filled with heartfelt and funny interviews with guests discussing the dualities of living across multiple cultures. And now they’re bringing the pod to MPavilion for a special live recording. 

Joining them for a chat is MPavilion Season 11 collaborator Joel Bray, a proud Wiradjuri dancer and performance-maker, and Scotty So, a Melbourne/Narrm-based artist who works across media, including ceramic, painting, photography, sculptures, site-responsive installation, videos, and performance.

As the Artistic Director of Joel Bray Dance, Joel Bray makes his work in collaboration with Elders, Community and Country, often in unorthodox spaces that draw on his Wiradjuri heritage. Using humour, Joel engages audiences in rituals that touch on themes of sex, history, trauma, and healing. 

Driven by the thrill of camp, Scotty So explores the often-contradictory relationship between humour and sincerity, creating a scene of para-fiction through the manipulation of found objects and existing imageries in the living experience. Born and raised in Hong Kong, So’s work has been shown in Australia, China, Hong Kong, and Europe, including the National Gallery of Victoria. Scotty So is represented by MARS Gallery in Australia.

This will be a celebration of shared stories and a peek behind the concrete walls into the work that makes up the Home Ground program. 

Ahead of their event, we sat Maria and Kate down to uncover how heritage shapes art, identity, and belonging, weaving a tapestry of voices that reflect the joys and complexities of dual identities. Read the full interview here.

Collaborators 

Maria Birch-Morunga (she/her) is a Māori/Pakehā podcast host, facilitator and craft queen. Maria’s practice includes fabric art, collage and co-creating the Being Biracial podcast. She is passionate about storytelling, race, identity, class and mental health. Alongside Kate Robinson, Maria is part of the current cohort of Museums Victoria’s Culturemakers. The pair created an immersive digital film, Threads, to be exhibited at Melbourne Museum and will run workshops on belonging with school groups. Maria is also part of Museums Victoria’s Creative Advisory Panel.

Kate Robinson (she/her) is an Iranian/Australian podcaster and multi-disciplinary artist. Kate’s practice includes painting, colourful craft and murals. She has held solo exhibitions at ArtsGen and as part of the Groundwork exhibition program in Melton. She was the inaugural Feminist in Residence at Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, where she curated the community craftivist exhibition ‘Make a Fuss’. Kate has been an artist in residence at ArtsBox, and is part Wyndham City Council ‘Artist as Curator’ program. For Kate, craft is a place to delve into her own family’s history, where stories are woven from fragments of memories, gossip between sisters and filled with sparkles. She serves on the boards of NextWave and QVWC Trust and is a member of the Arts West Committee and Museums Victoria’s Creative Advisory Panel.