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To Name the World considers how meaning is shaped through language, gesture, and encounter, where bodies, images, and experiences remain in constant flux. In its 2026 iteration, the Arts and Culture Film Festival unfolds as a deconstructed program of exhibitions, screenings, workshops, and discussions, foregrounding moving image as a site of collective exchange.

Arts & Culture Film Festival: to name the world

To Name the World considers how meaning is shaped through language, gesture, and encounter, where bodies, images, and experiences remain in constant flux. In its 2026 iteration, the Arts and Culture Film Festival unfolds as a deconstructed program of exhibitions, screenings, workshops, and discussions, foregrounding moving image as a site of collective exchange. 

Across the program, works engage with diasporic identity, political struggle, and the social life of images, tracing how narratives are constructed, circulated, and contested. Through participatory and expanded cinematic practices, the festival brings together relational forms—shared meals, performance, sound, and dialogue—that generate meaning through co-presence, observation, and exchange. To Name the World positions the festival as a space for gathering and negotiation, where worlds are not only represented, but collectively produced and held in common.

  • WORKSHOP: [Art] Making in Relation with Lilah Benetti Join filmmaker Lilah Benetti on Thursday 14 May 12-2:30pm for a workshop to consider documentary filmmaking as a relational practice shaped through collaboration, attention, and shared presence.
  • EXHIBITION: Unspeakable, the remaining crevices Unspeakable, the remaining crevices explores the third space, a transitional space that can be embraced, playable, or symbolized, a space that can generate new meanings.
  • EXHIBITION: The Correct Way to Open a Can: Strike with the Spine 'The Correct Way to Open a Can: Strike with the Spine' is a curatorial intervention created by Gingercan, exploring the total encapsulation of contemporary digital existence and Asian diasporic identity. Moving beyond traditional cinematic boundaries, the exhibition at George Paton Gallery features works by Barcode People (Qihao Liang and Tong Shu), Can Fan, Guangli Liu.
  • GAME: Liquid Left by aaajiao Liquid Left is a 2.5D atmospheric narrative exploration game adapted from xindi's fiction Liquid Left. You play as didi, a sentient droplet navigating a breathing, organic world. Through a series of abstract, sensory stages, players explore themes of language, physical connection, and the cycle of nature.
  • SCREENING: JiaJiang Dream (2023) by Gao Yuan Marking the first week of To Name the World, this keynote screening event brings together film and conversation to reflect on how moving image practices articulate place, memory, and belonging across diasporic contexts.
  • WORKSHOP: Script to Screen On Wednesday 20th May 12-2:30pm, writer and director Angie Kilsby guides participants through a filmmaking journey from from the first written concept to the realities of production.

VISIT

11am—5pm Monday—Friday during semester.

GEORGE PATON GALLERY
Wurundjeri Country
Level 1, Arts & Cultural Building (B159)
University of Melbourne, VIC 3010

CONTACT

03 8344 6966

gpg@union.unimelb.edu.au

@georgepatongallery (opens in a new tab)

George Paton Gallery (opens in a new tab)

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