Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 16 November
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
What does it mean to win? Why are so many of us motivated by the prospect of glory? How does our obsession with winning in sport shape our culture and sense of nationhood? And does this obsession spill over into our attitudes towards art, education and our careers?
In this conversation, hosted by broadcaster Francis Leach, we’ll examine the concept of winning from some fresh angles. Leach will be joined by artist Abdul Abdullah, whose artwork has broached the intersection of sport and politics, and academic Zali Yager, whose research focuses on body image and doping. Also stepping up to the crease will be cricket writer Gideon Haigh, whose new book explores themes of legends and legacy in cricket.
The panel will discuss the toll the obsession with winning can take on individuals, as well as the links between triumph, legacy and the dream of immortality.
Featuring
Francis Leach
Francis Leach is a broadcaster and journalist. He co-hosts the breakfast show with David Schwarz on 1116 SEN sports radio in Melbourne and is a regular panellist on ABC TV's The Offsiders and Ten's The Project.
For the last four years Francis was part of the ABC Grandstand team. He is also the creator and co-founder of the Sports Writers Festival which launched in Melbourne in late 2015.
He started his career rocking the nation at the ABC's youth radio network Triple J, where he hosted the network's morning current affairs program. Throw in a stint at ABC Radio National where he hosted a daily arts program for a while and you have the only broadcaster in the country who can lay claim to having worked with Phillip Adams and Dermott Brereton!
Abdul Abdullah
Abdul Abdullah is an artist from Perth, currently based in Sydney, who works across painting, photography, video, installation and performance. As a self described ‘outsider amongst outsiders’, his practice is primarily concerned with the experience of the ‘other’ in society. Abdullah’s projects have engaged with different marginalised minority groups and he is particularly interested in the experience of young Muslims in the contemporary multicultural Australian context. Through these processes and explorations Abdullah extrapolates this outlook to an examination of universal aspects of human nature.
His works are included in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, The Gallery of Modern Art, Artbank, the University of Western Australia, Murdoch University, The Islamic Museum of Australia and The Bendigo Art Gallery. In 2015 Abdul exhibited at Primavera at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and at the Asia Pacific Triennial at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, in 2016 he exhibited at the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art and in 2017 he showed at PATAKA Art Museum in New Zealand and with Yavuz Gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong and the Asia Now Art Fair in Paris.
Most recently Abdul exhibited at MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiangmai, The National Gallery of Australia as part of Infinite Conversations, and was shortlisted along with his brother Abdul-Rahman Abdullah to represent Australia in the 2019 Venice Biennale.
Gideon Haigh
Gideon Haigh has been a journalist 32 years, published 32 books and edited seven others. His latest is book is Stroke of Genius: Victor Trumper and the Shot That Changed Cricket published in 2016 by Penguin Random House.
Zali Yager
Zali Yager is a Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education at Victoria University in Melbourne. She is passionate about preparing the next generation of health and PE teachers to inspire health literacy and positive movement experiences for children and young people.
Her research expertise is in the area of body image, and specifically, the promotion of positive body image in school settings. Some early work has included investigations of personal eating and exercise behaviours among health and PE teachers. A more recent project involved a study of nutritional supplement use, body image, and attitudes towards performance enhancing drugs in sport among adolescent boys, funded by the Australian Government Anti-doping program.
Zali recently spent a year at the Centre for Appearance Research at the University of the West of England, and is a member of the Academy for Eating Disorders.