Join us in the Nuala O'Flaherty Auditorium at the Museum at Inveresk for an engaging afternoon to celebrate Pride Month.
Three professional living in Tasmania will share insights into their work across a range of fields, and how their identities as members of the LGBTQIA+ community have shaped and influenced their careers, creative practices, and personal lives.
Panellists include mathematician and physicist Ross Turner, ecologist Jarrah Dale, and artist and curator Zara Sully. Their stories will shine a spotlight on the unique challenges they’ve faced, the perspectives they bring to their work, and their contributions to both their fields and the broader Tasmanian community.
This event offers a space to listen, reflect, and celebrate the many ways identity and lived experience influence the work we do and the lives we lead.
A Q&A session will follow the panel discussion, and guests are invited to continue the conversation over afternoon tea.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Ross Turner
Dr Ross Turner is a Lecturer in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Tasmania who studies powerful jets launched by supermassive black holes in distant galaxies. Beyond astrophysics, he applies computational modelling to challenges in earth sciences, particularly in Antarctic research. His outreach with QueersInScience, supporting inclusion in science, earned him a Eureka Prize finalist nomination.
Jarrah Dale
Jarrah grew up on the Timmtumili minanya in Nipaluna/ Hobart and therefore has strong connections to both fresh and saltwater places. He also has paternal connections to the Kalkadoon peoples of Mt. Isa and the Yappar River.
Jarrah has experience as an Ecologist across broad landscapes from tropical savannas and arid systems to temperate rainforests and grassland plains. His interests lie in using long term data to inform management and providing opportunities for traditional knowledge to lead science and management of places.
Empowering people to bring their individual lived experiences and passions to their ecology and science is of the utmost importance to Jarrah, and is how he supports younger ecologists navigate their early careers.
Zara Sully
Zara Sully lives and works near the banks of the kanamaluka in Lutruwita (Launceston, Tasmania) but spent most of their life on Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri lands of the Kulin nation. They are firstly an artist but also an arts worker, curator, and researcher.
As an artist and curator, Zara’s current practice delves into the pertinence and fluidity of language – engaging with intersectional feminist theory and exploring the decentralising of queerness through a performative practice.
Zara is a graduate of Fine Art (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts and Monash University. Previous shows include It's All We Have (2025, artist), Hot Mess (2024, co-curated with Beau Palmer), Isn't it Ironic (2023), Yours Queerly (2021, artist and co-curator), and On Screen, In the Flesh (2021). Current projects include Ways of Knowing, a collaboration between the University of Tasmania and Sawtooth ARI, and their ongoing curatorial work at Sawtooth.
Zara is the current director of Sawtooth ARI. Zara is also passionate about the roles of artist-run-initiatives in the arts-ecology.
Photo credit: Samson Steers