Recordings of Festival of Ideas presentations

How do we make sense of a population as spread out and diverse as Australia?

For years, we’ve looked to demographers to carve up, label, and stratify the public into groups and categories, in the hope that these overlapping identifiers might help us understand the shape of the nation. Such complex data rarely makes the front page, but can inform policy decisions that affect all of our lives. So how does it all work, and how can demography help us understand contemporary Australia?

In collaboration with the Stretton Institute and Don Dunstan Foundation.

Speakers include: Prof Adam Graycar and The Hon Dr Jane Lomax-Smith AM

Recording

There are some big cultural changes afoot inside kitchens and beyond, as the food world looks for smarter and more sustainable systems of production and consumption from the restaurant to the supermarket. Join our panel of freshly foraged experts as they sink their teeth into some of the most exciting and complicated conversations about how we eat. Speaking of food, we’ll also keep you warm and fed with a cup of soup from chef and panellist Ben Shewry. In collaboration with the Stretton Institute.

Speakers include: Ben Shewry, Damien Coulthard, Prof Rachel Ankeny, Rebecca Sullivan.

Recording

For years South Australia has been a national leader in embracing renewable energy, transforming our power grid in ways that were almost unimaginable a decade ago. But this success has not been without challenges, from policy uncertainty at a federal level to damaging myths that have often flourished across the media and chamber of parliament. As we look toward a new decade, how can we navigate the renewed urgency of the climate crisis, and the technical and political challenges of a post-carbon future driven by clean energy? In collaboration with the Stretton Institute and Institute for Mineral and Energy Resources.

Speakers include: Sam Craft, Kristin Raman, Prof Ashok Khurana, Peter Siebels, Chris Greig and Prof Michael Goodsite.

Recording

Social media has fundamentally reshaped the way many of us engage with our friends, our communities, and our world. But it also affects how we view ourselves, from the way an Instagram filter frames our face, to the carefully curated versions of our lives we share online. It allows us to speak our truths, while unleashing torrents of abuse; we are censored, but also left exposed. How can we reconcile these contradictions, and find a way to be ~very online~, without sacrificing our health, happiness and agency? In collaboration with the Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender and Robinson Research Institute.

Speakers include: Taryn Brumfitt, Clementine Ford, Prof Megan Warin and Cambrey Payne. MC Tory Shepherd.

Recording