JCG Lunchtime Talk: Futuring through Speculative Entanglements

A lunchtime panel with Curtin’s Ecologies of Imagination Micro Lab, in response to Regional Arts Triennial - Radical Futures at John Curtin Gallery. What does it mean to imagine a future from within the material practices, places and relationships we inhabit? In this conversation, members of Curtin's Ecologies of Imagination Micro Lab, Monika Lukowska-Appel, Claudia Westermann, Pia Interlandi and Beck Barlow, read the works of Radical Futures through the lens of speculative entanglement. Drawing on their research through practice, they propose that a form of serious everyday play can open what already exists to other possibilities. Across the regional voices gathered in the exhibition, the panellists trace how care, cultural continuity and ecological responsibility take shape through making. They relate these works to their own practices: coastlines translated through AI and lithography, installations that set technology in dialogue with place, garments that return to the soil, and sewing as a way of carrying relationships and knowledge. Futuring, they suggest, requires trust in practices that embed the uncertain in the now. Header Image: Monika Lukowska-Appel, Pia Interlandi and Claudia Westermann, Shelled and Feathered, 2026. Screenshot from documentary by Claudia Westermann.