At this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival, guest curator Nardi Simpson didn’t just help design the program, she created a space where relationships, connection, the body and the written word intersect.
As a Yuwaalaraay storyteller, member of the musical-duo Stiff Gins and most recently, author to her second novel The Belburd, Simpson is no stranger to crafting stories across mediums. Yet, the Writers’ Festival gave her a chance to challenge traditional literary boundaries.
“I love seeing the capability of relational ways of working in a written space, and that’s what I hope I’m bringing, a different way to connect and engage with story,” Simpson said.
After serving as a First Nations Curator at the Melbourne Writers Festival earlier this month, Simpson turned her focus to Sydney, where she’s based, and the chance to spotlight voices close to her heart.
This year’s theme, In This Together, strikes a personal chord for Simpson. “In a beautiful way, the people I’m engaging with and the stories I’m interested in are from my Blak writing community. It’s another opportunity to celebrate their work… we’re always family, festival or not.”
The theme of connection took physical form in the event Beyond the Self, a discussion panel that Simpson co-hosted alongside Daniel Browning and Thomas Mayo. “I’m interested in the body of work, the written artifact. How can we embody that in our physical selves, but also in the structures that our bodies interact with? The structures that are external to us like the Constitution or the media,” she said.
“And in that way, it allows the written word, the book, to have a life in a body and have a life in a structure, in a different way.”
Also curated by Simpson, Songstress Poetica brought together a panel of First Nations female poets whose work blurs the line between verse and voice.
“[The poets] have a language that transcends all ways of being. So, I want to put a big mob of deadly female poets on stage, and let them weave their magic, it’s music to me. It’s not just the fluidity of words. It’s the way that a body measures the delivery of those which is just as musical.”
Above all, Simpson hoped to inspire a genuine connection between attendees and the events they experience, encouraging them to engage with the voices, stories and cultures presented in new, fresh ways.
“I would love people to be gushing about the creativity and the skill of First Nations creatives and their special ability to share generously all that they are and to offer that as a gift of who we can be together.”
