Co-founders Clem MacLeod and P. Eldridge bring their open-access learning program, The Compost Library, to Australia with the aim of helping people discover how to reap the personal, social, and political benefits of reading and writing for mental well-being.

On this special occasion, we find inspiration in local and international texts by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ursula K. Le Guin, and more; confronting ideas of decolonisation in our creating writing, storytelling and gathering. During the session, we invite participants into discussion about these texts and together attempt writing prompts to inspire our creative practices.

With a distinct focus on tender participation and co-creation, The Compost Library provides space for people to gather, share, listen and collectively imagine literary futures. During the course, Worms will have a popup in-gallery shop where you can buy merch, magazines and books.

Tickets are $10 each with a capacity of 35 people. If you want to attend but have difficulty meeting the ticket cost, please reach out and we can consider your individual circumstances on a case by case basis: compost@worm-s.com.

[Book Tickets Here]

The Compost Library acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land upon which we make and facilitate our work, the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people and their neighbours, the Boonwurrung people of the Eastern Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures; and their Elders past and present. We acknowledge the fact that sovereignty was never ceded and that Aboriginal people are Australia’s first storytellers.

We are pleased that Seventh Cinema is back for a second season!

This year's curated film program is tethered to Martinican psychiatrist and anti-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon’s often-misunderstood and overly read essay Concerning Violence from his book The Wretched of the Earth (1961). For this season, we have curated films that overlap with Fanon’s ideas and sentiments in the spirit he intended - not as an endorsement of violence itself, but as a confrontation of the processes that drive colonised people to necessarily use violence.

In the wake of Invasion Day, and in solidarity with the Aboriginal peoples of this Country, our season premiere screening presents the duality of colonial law and Indigenous Law in so-called Australia. Two Laws (1982) -  a documentary that discusses conflicts that arise from the violent imposition of the colonial mindset on First Nations peoples worldviews. This season also includes; Embrace of the Serpent (2015) - a visually stunning feature filmed on 35mm in the Amazon, set against the violent backdrop of the colonial rubber trade. Contos do Esquecimento (Tales of Oblivion) (2023) - a meditative film essay that reflects on the physical and cultural remnants of colonial atrocities in our present landscapes. Born in Flames (1983) - a guerrilla style mockumentary that explores racism, classism, sexism and heterosexism in an alternate socialist democratic United States. Our season concludes with the seminal film The Battle of Algiers (1966), one of cinema’s great political masterpieces, which charts the Algerian national liberation movement from its beginnings in 1954 through to independence in 1962. The film is said to have inspired the Black Panthers, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.

We welcome you to join us in viewing these, and other important films, in reflecting on their profound relevance to the present. This season invites a critical examination of colonialism within our local context and the atrocities unfolding further afield. In engaging with Fanon’s work, we are called to consider the responsibilities of Western intellectuals and nations in perpetuating or dismantling colonial systems. Most importantly, these films challenge us to ask: what is our role in revolution?

- Kori Miles and Lucie Loy

Screenings are free to attend. All are welcome. Reserve tickets through the following links...

ϟ 30 January

Two Laws (1982) 2h 10m. Directed by the Borroloola Community, Alessandro Cavadini and Carolyn Strachan.

White people don't understand that there are two laws. White people have different laws from Aboriginal people. TWO LAWS is a film about history, law and life in the community of Borroloola in far North Queensland. The films offers viewers a remarkable and different way of seeing and hearing. Like the film BACKROADS it is one of the few productions at that time in which Aboriginal people had creative input. The impetus for TWO LAWS came from the community themselves. There was substantial collaboration with the film makers before and during the shooting period. It is one of the most outstanding films to be made during the 1980s. It is a historical analysis of what, nearly forty years later, is an increasingly contemporary question. Two Laws.

ϟ 6 February

Embrace of the Serprent (2015) 2h 5m. Directed by Ciro Guerra.

Shot almost entirely in black and white, the film follows two journeys made thirty years apart by the indigenous shaman Karamakate in the Colombian Amazonian jungle, one with Theo, a German ethnographer, and the other with Evan, an American botanist, both of whom are searching for the rare plant yakruna. It was inspired by the travel diaries of Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes, and dedicated to lost Amazonian cultures.

ϟ 13 February

Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali (Tobacco Embers) (1982) 25m. Directed by the Yugantar Film Collective; and Born in Flames (1983) 1h 30m. Directed by Lizzie Borden.

TAMBAKU CHAAKILA OOB ALI documents, re-enacts, and takes forward one of the largest movements of unorganised labor of its time and context, which sparked unionising processes across India throughout the 1980s. In the spirit of mobilising for the leftist labor and the women’s movements the Yugantar collective spent four months with female tobacco factory workers in Nipani, Karnataka in India, listening to their accounts of exploitative working conditions, discussing strategies for unionising and steps to broaden solidarities for strike actions, and filming previously unseen circumstances inside the factories.

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The film that rocked the foundations of the 1980s underground, this postpunk provocation is a DIY fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a social-democratic cultural revolution. When Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield), the black revolutionary founder of the Woman’s Army, is mysteriously killed, a diverse coalition of women - across all lines of race, class, and sexual orientation - emerges to blow the system apart. Filmed guerrilla style on the streets of pre-gentrification New York, BORN IN FLAMES is a Molotov cocktail of feminist futurism that’s both an essential document of its time and radically ahead of it.

ϟ 20 February

Human Being (إنسان / Insan) (1994) 27m. Directed by Ibrahim Shaddad; and Talking About Trees (2019) 1h 30m. Directed by Suhaib Gasmelbari.

This experimental film without dialogue makes innovative use of sound to tell the story of a shepherd who, having lost his wife, children and cattle after his homeland is stricken by drought, goes to the city to find work. Through a poetic association of images the film critiques the dehumanising effects on the Sudanese people of the Sharia ruled government that was in power in the early eighties.

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In Sudan, cinema is a thing of the past, but four directors and lifelong friends refuse to accept it. They learned their art abroad - one of them is jokingly referred to as the Sudanese Eisenstein by the others. With their Sudanese film club, the men struggle to keep their film culture alive. Much of their work has been lost, but a few excerpts are included in the documentary.

To introduce others to the magic of film, they decide to rent a dilapidated old open-air cinema for a big free screening. But how do you do this in a country where there are power cuts, you lack the equipment and infrastructure, and the call to prayer blares out from mosques on all sides? “How did we used to do it?” they wonder, laughing. Then they realise that there didn’t used to be a call to prayer. Sudan’s repressive and violent history remains in the background, and film is clearly still out of favor with the regime. Nevertheless, the men remain hopeful.

ϟ 27 February

Fantastic Planet (1973) 1h 12m. Directed by Rene Laloux; and Contos do Esquecimento (Tales of Oblivion) (2023) 1h 2m. Directed by Dulce Fernandes.

Rene Laloux's mesmerising sci-fi animated feature won the Grand Prix at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and is a landmark of European animation. Set in a distant world, the 'Fantastic Planet', where tiny humans, or Oms, are kept as pets by large alien creatures, the Draags, the film travels through a strange and beautiful world. Soon, one Om absconds with a Draag knowledge device, using the tool to instigate a wild Om uprising against his captors. Inspired by the Russsian invasion of Czechoslovakia in the late '60s, Laloux's vision immediately drew comparisons to Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Planet of the Apes. Today, the film can be seen to prefigure much of the work of Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) due to its political and social concerns, epic imagination and  animation techniques.

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Excavations in the southern Portuguese city of Lagos unearthed a huge 15th-century landfill site a few years ago. Alongside a variety of implements, the archaeologists found human remains. There were more than 150 skeletons in all, of men, women and children - and some of them were tied up.

Genetic analysis confirmed that they were the skeletons of Africans who had been enslaved by traders and brought to Portugal. Perhaps they died during the voyage or shortly after their arrival; in any case, they were not given a proper burial. This shocking discovery exposed the concealed history of Portugal. Over the course of four centuries, six million people were transported in this way under the Portuguese or Brazilian flags.

In Tales of Oblivion, Dulce Fernandes investigates the traces left in today’s landscape by this horrific trade in human beings. The calm camera tracks steadily from site to site -the former landfill is now a parking garage topped by a minigolf course - and museum objects bearing witness to the history of colonialism. In a quiet but thorough way, this essayistic film reveals a hidden past.

ϟ 6 March 2025

The Battle of Algiers (1966) 2h 1m. Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo.

One of the most influential political films in history, The Battle of Algiers, by Gillo Pontecorvo, vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, women plant bombs in cafés, and French soldiers resort to torture to break the will of the insurgents. Shot on the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film is a case study in modern warfare, with its terrorist attacks and the brutal techniques used to combat them. Pontecorvo’s tour de force has astonishing relevance today.

SHIFT: A Queer Symposia, is a a series of events to create a space for discourse, exchange, & solidarity within the LGBTIQA+ community.

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Co-designed with the queer community, SHIFT transforms perspectives through art, film, workshops, & panels on diverse queer issues & experiences.

See below for the program, in chronological order:

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SAPPHIC SEVENTH: Opening night & launch of SHIFT: A Queer Symposia

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Date: Opening Night event: Wednesday 22 January, 6-8pm ‍

Dates of full exhibition/publication-in-place: 22 Jan - 1 Feb, Seventh's normal opening hours

About: During the 2024/25 summer holidays, we ran a six-week course, Sapphic Reading and Writing, for sapphic writers and artists, inspired by the Women’s Art Register archive. The project resulted in a chapbook and a gallery display featuring works exploring themes like queer time, sapphic love, identity, and archives—join us for the launch!

Cost: free

Click here to read more details about SAPPHIC SEVENTH

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SHIFT: Queer Ekphrasis

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Date: Saturday 25 January, 10.30am - 1pm

About: This workshop, led by author and editor Ange Crawford, guides emerging writers and those curious about writing about art through different approaches to ekphrastic writing (responding to artworks), with a focus on queer perspectives.

Cost: FREE

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT: Queer Ekphrasis

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SHIFT: Q-Poetry Open Mic

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Date: Friday 31 January, 6.30 - 8.30pm

About: Calling all poets, storytellers, and secret note book writers! Join us for an evening of shared stories, lived experiences, hungers, aches, joys, and verbal filigree.

From spoken word artists to page poets, storytellers, and bards; this stage is for all writers to have a moment to share their stories and been seen. Come to listen or come to share.You're welcome to perform on any topic, as long as it is respectful (racism, ableism, ageism, and of course homophobia, transphobia, and interphobia will not be tolerated).

This platform is designed to amplify queer voices, within that, what you decide to share doesn't have to be "overtly queer", there is no need to prove anything to us, you are accepted as you are. Hosted by award winning poet and writer, Fleassy Malay.

Whilst we welcome walk-ups on the night, open mic spots will be limited and subject to available time within the event schedule.

Cost: FREE, registrations encouraged.

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT: Q-poetry Open Mic

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SHIFT: scrappy journal making

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Date: Saturday 1 February, 11am - 1pm

About: In this workshop, let's connect with the ‘scrappy’ parts of life and ourselves through upcycling and recycling. Creativity and expression is for everyone - let’s play! Led by artist Sien - who is a queer, Pasefika, chronically ill maker of things, who enjoys the freedom and possibilities of upcycling and recycling.

Cost: FREE

Book your ticket here and read more information about SHIFT: scrappy journal making

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Check back here - more programs being added daily!

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If you have any questions or would like to get involved, please contact kenny@seventhgallery.org

SHIFT: A Queer Symposia is supported by the Victorian Government.

During the summer holidays of 2024/25, we ran a six-week, practice-led course titled Sapphic Reading and Writing, created for sapphic writers and artists. This project drew inspiration from the Women’s Art Register archive, housed in the Richmond Library. Seventh gratefully acknowledges the support of Lesbians Incorporated (LInc), whose funding made this project possible.

The project culminates in the release of this chapbook, paired with a deconstructed and extended version displayed across the walls and spaces of Seventh's galleries. Spilling out from the white cube and the blank page into various unpublishable forms, participants’ interconnected works explore themes such as queer time, space, and architecture; failure, drafting, and incompleteness; the layered roles of archives, memory, and visibility; sapphic love, friendship, and fate; bodies, sex, and the senses; and the complexities of language, labels, identities, and genres. Together, these works form a chaotic, messy, and queer takeover of Seventh, creating an ephemeral archive-in-space.

We are excited to present the printed component of this project. The rest continues to exist in queer time: in personal archives, in memory, and beneath the layers of white paint that accumulate on the gallery walls.

Join us for the publication launch and experience the gallery’s ongoing transformation!

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Expanding the Field presents a series of public banners that consider the intersections of public space, symbology and collective memory of the Citizens Park site. I have used drawing, camera-less photography and digital design to reimagine the idea of civic belonging and to playfully question ideas of identity and connection to place. I have captured ephemeral moments and unstable traces of public life through documenting direct encounters with the park's textures and temporal qualities, along with elements of archival material and lines of sight from the park. Through processes of deconstruction, tracing and reconfiguring, I have applied features of the coat of arms of the Corporation of the City of Richmond with references to the history of the site as a place of trade, leisure and mutual exchange. Expanding the Field invites viewers to reconsider how banners (and flags), traditionally instruments of proposed civic identity and classification, might instead become vehicles for exploring the fluid, overlapping territories of public space, identity and shared memory.

Famam extendere factis
et mon droit
Spread the word of the facts
and my right

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