The Cultural Programme is an exciting inclusion in the timetable of the Conference. Its aim is to promote the use of the Arts in issues of reconciliation, and will emphasise the expressive and healing powers of the Arts in contributing to a dialogue on peace and reconciliation. The Conference's Cultural Program will showcase indigenous culture, act as a medium for peace-building and a vehicle for furthering cross-cultural understanding. The programme will be carried out through a variety of media including dance, sculpture, music, drama and photography, and will run along side the academic presentations. Below is a list of participants who have already confirmed.

For a pdf version of the cultural program, please click here

• East Timorese Weaving Project - Fatima Araujo has been running weaving workshops with local East Timorese women. The project will be showcased at the conference. Traditional and contemporary weaving practises have a strong significance for East Timorese identity and culture. In light of recent events in East Timor the practice of weaving has come to embody designs emerging from women's memories and experiences as well as traditional mythology and symbols.
• Peace Memorials - Martin Rubenstein and Vanessa Mooney will present RMIT Student's design projects of peace/conflict memorials. In addition they will present a display detailing the design task, a summary of thematic outcomes, and suggestions of potential applications of the ideas to future architectural expression. They will act as guides through the exhibition for a session.
• PPOWP Pantomime Wise Ways to Win - An entertaining pantomime especially created for Australian Primary school children to teach them ways of solving conflict at home and at school. This pantomime is based on the successful Wise Ways to Win poster and children's book, both of which were written by Psychologists for the Promotion of World Peace, to teach children the basic steps of conflict resolution. In the pantomime, Koala and Kookaburra are in conflict. Koala and her baby need to sleep a lot during the daytime because they spend all night eating gum leaves. Unfortunately, their peace is disturbed by Kookaburra, who likes to sing and laugh and tell jokes all day long. With the help of a book they find at Wise Old Owl's library, koala and kookaburra learn how to talk about their problems and brainstorm solutions so that everyone enjoys a satisfactory outcome. Following the performance of the pantomime, there will be short presentation of the conflict resolution workshop that follows the pantomime when it is performed in schools, and an opportunity for the audience to ask questions.
• Soka Gakkai International - will be putting on a photography exhibition on the theme of a culture of peace titled "Gandi, King, Ikeda: A Legacy of Building Peace". The exhibition panels feature photographs, inspiring quotes and factual information about Mohandas K. Gandi, martin Luther King, Jr., and Daisaku Ikeda. The exhibition portrays the lives of these three peace-builders as they relate to key themes including the importance of having a mentor in life, the innate dignity of human beings, dynamic action, nonviolence and triumphing over diversity.
• Melbourne Playback Theatre Company - Come and see your experiences at the conference brought to life using a dynamic combination of theatre, music and movement with Melbourne Playback Theatre Company. Playback is a unique and exciting from of spontaneous theatre presented by a team of professional actors and a musician. A performance is facilitated by a conductor, who provides the opportunity for the audience to share stories and experiences. The actors and musician re-enact these stories using a variety of improvisational forms. Like all good theatre a Playback performance works by engaging its audience, it is interactive, spontaneous and skillful.
• Documentary Showings - Four documentaries will be presented that focus on reconciliation. Following each showing will be a forum.
  • Monday 14th - A Long Nights Journey into Day
  • Tuesday 15th - Promises
  • Wednesday 16th - Breaking Bows and Arrows
  • Thursday 17th - Children of the Crocodile
• Craft Victoria - Craft Victoria will run a lecture by Dr Liz Williamson. She is Australia's foremost handweaver and can speak for its venerable tradition. Liz Williamson will speak about the culture of the scarf and the way in which it expresses different kinds of ethnic identity. She will profile the scarf as a material tie that links diverse cultures together. She will discuss some intriguing projects and works that have brought opposing cultures together through this common link.
• The Cool Room - Written by Sivan Gabrielovich and directed by Deborah Leiser-Moore this play is based on the 1982 "Peace for Galilee Operation" which led to an 18 years of military conflict between Israel and Lebanon. The Cool Room follows a strong tradition of contemporary political plays about aspects of the ongoing Jewish-Arabic conflict. In Australia, a neutral country, the conflict is re-visited through the eyes of two men. They have survived the same war on two opposing sides, and it is here, in Melbourne, that they are given the opportunity to listen to their 'enemy' for the first time. They are displaced and locked together, in a country that offers escape but not home. If they will not learn how to keep each other warm, they will die together.
• Refugees by Refugees - Timothy Syrota will present a series of written and photographic perspectives concerning life for displaced people, illegal immigrants, and refugees fleeing the Burmese military. There are over 500 000 such people currently in Thailand, some in camps, some in ad hoc villages, some sleeping on the floors of the factories of their Thai employers. Co-ordinate a workshop, put the word out for people that think that they may have an interest in photography, and at the end of the workshop let them loose with cameras and pens. And the results? A simpler yet more comprehensive picture of life on the Thai-Burma border would be hard to come by.

The range of the cultural programme is ever growing with new acts being added, so come back and check! If you are interested in participating in the cultural programme please contact us on conf2003@psych.unimelb.edu.au with your ideas.