A few weeks back I had the privilege of having Wayne Barker, cultural programs Director of @KALACC come to the Australian National University, thanks to support from Australian Studies Institute, to work on AV research material from the Following the Trade Routes Project.
We cooked up some big plans that will make their way into the world in good time. But it was also a chance to explore some of the threads of personal and professional history that bring us to be doing this work together, which turn out to have some roots in the very neighbourhood we were working in.
Wayne has had a fabulously interesting career, including working as a trainee in musicology then ethnographic film at the Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in his late teens. So when we went for breakfast at New Acton, round the corner from my office at the ANU, we walked right by his old office (now an office of the UNHCR!) and that led us to go seek out the wonderful David MacDougall who taught us both a huge amount about ethnographic film.
Wayne got to work with him and Judith back in the day at the Institute (now @AIATSIS) and I grew up sneaking salami their place during the ANU film group in the ‘80s, and had the privilege of their wisdom and guidance about film making and collaborative practice over the years.
Here’s another photo of Wayne from those trainee days
