What insights do oceans and seas offer us in understanding Australia\u2019s entanglements with Asia? While living in Darwin (Garramilla) and witnessing the changing colours of the Timor Sea throughout the seasons, historian Vannessa Hearman became intrigued by historical voyages between Northern Australia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste, including those by traders, fishers and refugees. This talk focuses on her place-based research practices in both northern Australia and Timor-Leste, involving coastlines, lagoons, mangroves, ports, roads, and other built environments, to reflect on colonisation and state regulation of aquatic spaces. She demonstrates how thinking about (and feeling) place, along with archival and life-history research, can attune us to the challenges people and communities face in remembering and memorialising the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vannessa Hearman<\/strong> is Associate Professor of History at Curtin University. Specialising in research on political violence, human rights, and historical memory in Indonesia and Timor-Leste, she is the author of the critically acclaimed Unmarked Graves: Death and Survival in the Anti-Communist Violence in East Java, Indonesia<\/em> (NUS Press, 2018). Her second monograph, The Good Sea: The Journey of the Tasi Diak and the Politics of Refugee Protection in Australia <\/em>(Melbourne University Publishing, May 2026), is a study of the only group of East Timorese \u2018boat people\u2019 who sailed to Australia. Her research on the history of East Timorese migration to Australia and the politics of art in Timor-Leste has been supported by the Australian Research Council and other grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wednesday 18 February 2026Event Details<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
12:30pm \u2013 1:30pm
Free event, open to the public<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n