Arts Thursday with Maisy Stapleton and Paula Towers

We may not be able to travel at the moment, but we can still look to far horizons.

Perhaps now is the time to spend learning another language – if not face-to-face, there are many on-line courses and aids to be found. Or we might now have time to properly study the customs and culture of the countries we hope to visit in the future.

This week’s Arts Thursday explores why we want to learn other languages – in particular Italian, long after school is out and explores the textiles of Laos, the small landlocked country squeezed between Vietnam and Thailand.

One of the joys of travel is meeting the people of the country particularly if they are skilled craftspeople, with skills unique to that nation.

Valerie Kirk is our first guest. She has had an important career in textiles and design and on retiring from ANU as Head of Textile shas continued her practice in both textile and visual arts and in conjunction with specialist travel group Intentionally Different Tours, leads fascinating textile tours to countries such as Laos, Japan and South America.

Maisy was fortunate to take a tour to Laos with Valerie, at the beginning of this year and amidst dyeing workshops and travel along the rivers of Laos, managed to grab an interview about the textiles of this extraordinary place.

Then, listen in to an interview with Dr Cristiana Palmieri, who has recently completed a doctoral thesis on the reasons we love to learn Italian. 

Cristiana’s research has been published as: Identity Trajectories of Adult Second Language Learners – Learning Italian in Australia. She is a research affiliate within the Department of Italian Studies, School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sydney, Australia and works as Manager, Member Learning and Development at The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP)

Join us from 10:30 am for Arts Thursday.

For further information:

Intentionally Different Tours: https://intenttravel.com.au/

Valerie Kirk: https://www.valeriekirktapestry.com/ https://www.portrait.gov.au/content/so-fine-valerie-kirk

Cristiana Palmieri’s publication: https://multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?k=9781788922210

DON’T WORRY IF YOU MISS THE PROGRAM!

If you miss the program you can listen again by going to /arts/artsthursday/ and clicking on the date 19 March 2020.

And watch out for podcasts at later dates.

Tune into Arts Thursday with Maisy Stapleton every fortnight from 10:30 to noon for in-depth conversations on the arts.