Bundanon has partnered with Red Room Company, to bring a poet in residence to work with secondary schools and community groups since 2012.
Bundanon is proud to partner with The Red Room Company, a not-for-profit organization based in Sydney that commissions, for their New Shoots project in 2016-17, and hosts the annual red Room Fellowship Workshops.
Poetry Workshops 2019
In the first week of July 2019 Red Room Poetry Fellow, Jeanine Leane, led students through poetry workshops at Bundanon as poet-in-residence.
These workshops, presented in partnership with Red Room Poetry, involved secondary school students from the YWCA Links to Learning program to encourage and support students in re-engaging with their education. Nowra High School, Vincentia High School, Bomaderry High School, Shoalhaven High School and Nowra High School Girls program all enjoyed their day at Bundanon.
We were delighted to welcome Kirli Saunders, Manager, Poetic Learning for Red Room and a previous artist in residence back to Bundanon to work with Jeanine.
Poetry Workshops 2018
Gabrielle Journey Jones
In June 2018, Bundanon welcomed Red Room’s Gabrielle ‘’Journey’’ Jones into residence. Local school students from three schools enjoyed engaging poetry workshops on site at Bundanon led by Gabe ”Journey” Jones and assisted by Red Room’s Manager of Poetic Learning and Yuin poet Kirli Saunders. Students and teachers wrote individual and group poems, experimenting with drum beats to perform their poetry with rhythmic elements, inspired by Gabe’s unique style of spoken word performance and the Bundanon landscape.
Gabrielle Journey Jones is a poet, percussionist and event producer born on sovereign Gadigal Land, Sydney, Australia. She is from Maori and African American bloodlines and lives in the Illawarra, NSW with her family. Jones has shared her poetry on open mics and by invitation at local, national and international events for over 20 years. Her first collection of poetry “Spoken Medicine” was published in October 2017 by Ginninderra Press.
She is currently involved in a range of collaborative projects and events including with Unspoken Words; Red Room Poetry; Kind Art Ed; South Coast Writers Centre; and the Tasmanian Poetry Festival.
Poetry Workshops 2017
High School students from four schools enjoyed engaging poetry workshops on site at Bundanon led by Ali Cobby Eckermann and assisted by Red Room’s Manager of Poetic Learning and Yuin poet Kirli Saunders.
Ali Cobby Eckermann is a proud Yankunytjatjara/Kokatha woman.
In 2013 Ali toured Ireland as Australian. Poetry Ambassador and won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and Book Of The Year (NSW) for Ruby Moonlight, a massacre verse novel. In 2014 Ali was the inaugural recipient of the Tungkunungka Pintyanthi Fellowship at Adelaide Writers Week, and the first Aboriginal Australian writer to attend the International Writing Program at University of Iowa. Her memoir Too Afraid To Cry was launched in New Delhi India in 2015, on her way to Jaipur Literature Festival. In 2016 Ali presented a Keynote at the Active Aesthetics conference in Berkeley California. In 2017 Ali received a Windham-Campbell Award from Yale University.
Eucalyptus Eco-Poetry Project 2017
This project is under The Red Room Company’s New Shoots umbrella program. This poetic art project responded to site-specific eucalypts & ecological communities and enriched narratives, participant engagement & connections with the many eucalyptus species at Bundanon.
Proud Yuin woman Kirli Saunders delivered poetry workshops for the 2017 project with 2 local schools, Shoalhaven High and Kangaroo Valley Public School, and the University of the 3rd Age, whilst in residence at Bundanon during March 2017.
Eucalyptus Eco-Poetry Project 2016
Singaporean Sydney based poet and former Australian Poetry Fellow Eileen Chong delivered poetry workshops for the project to 3 local high schools and the University of the 3rd Age, whilst in residence at Bundanon during June 2016.
Eileen’s poem Burning Rice (Australian Poetry, 2012) was shortlisted for the Anne Elder Award, Australian Arts in Asia Award and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. Her other books are Peony (Pitt Street Poetry, 2014) and Painting Red Orchids (Pitt Street Poetry, 2016.
Poetry Workshops 2015
Poet in residence Zohab Khan engaged the students in spoken and written poetry responding to personal communication and place.
Zohab Zee Khan is nomadic spoken word artist, originally hailing from Wagga Wagga NSW. In 2014, he was named the Australian Poetry Slam Champion. He is the founding director of Zee Poetics, an organisation that aims to inspire a new generation of poets through performance based workshops. Zohab also won the NSW State Finals for the Australian Poetry Slam in 2012.
Poetry Workshops 2014
Workshops were held at the Bundanon property with Lorna Munro the poet in residence for the 2014 Red Room Company workshops.
Lorna Munro is a proud, young Wiradjuri/ Gamilaroi woman.
Recently Munro has performed in plays at the Eora College in Redfern, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream and has quickly crossed over to screen featuring in ‘Australia on trial’, a docu-drama for the ABC. Lorna is an emerging artist and has displayed work in Boomali’s 2010 exhibition: “Celebrating 25 years of strength”.
Munro has had work published in the Southerly Literary Journal and is currently working on a number of arts projects.
Poetry Workshops 2013
In 2013, The Red Room Company poet Tim Sinclair was invited into residence at Bundanon to enable young people from four local high schools to participate in site-based, poetry workshops.
Tim Sinclair is a poet, novelist, sound creator and PhD candidate examining young adult post-apocalyptic fiction.
Poetry Workshops 2012
Secondary students from Bomaderry High School, Vincentia High School and Shoalhaven High School participated in poetry workshops at Bundanon, presented in partnership with The Red Room Company in October 2012.
The students engaged with The Disappearing, an app which geolocates poetry to place. Johanna Featherstone, poet and Artistic Director of The Red Room Company, joined hip hop artist and spoken word poet Nick Bryant Smith as facilitators for the workshops as artists in residence at Bundanon.
