Arendtian Ethos:
A philosophical framework inspired by Hannah Arendt emphasising the creation and sustenance of public spaces that honour plurality, collective action, and the rhythms of life. It values togetherness, dialogue, and the ethical responsibilities of individuals within a shared world, resisting commodification and institutionalisation while fostering genuine kinship and accountability.

Agential Realism:
A theory by Karen Barad emphasising that agency emerges through interactions (intra-actions) between human and non-human entities. It challenges fixed boundaries between humans and beyond-humans, emphasising relationality and co-creation of meaning and matter.

Attunement:
The practice of aligning one’s attention and actions with the rhythms, relationships, and agencies of human and beyond-human kin. This involves listening, observing, and responding to the interconnected dynamics of place and community.

Artefacts:
Objects, outputs, or traces of creative practice that carry relational and contextual significance. In this research, artefacts are considered dynamic and living, constantly interacting with their surroundings and evolving over time.

Beyond-Human Kin:
Entities beyond the human realm, including animals, plants, landscapes, and other non-human actors, recognised as relational and significant contributors to shared ecologies and creative processes.

Build Up (Dalirrgang):
A local seasonal term for the transition into the wet season on Larrakia Country, characterised by high humidity, dramatic skies, and a shift in human and ecological rhythms. It is a time of preparation, slowing down, and adapting to the environment.

Care:
An active, ethical practice of attentiveness, reciprocity, and accountability. Care extends beyond humans to include the more-than-human world, fostering interdependence, addressing inequities, and sustaining communities and ecologies.

Collaboration:
The process of working together with others, including human, non-human, and more-than-human entities, to create, explore, and engage with shared ideas or practices.

Community Cultural Development (CCD):
A socially engaged art practice that involves working with, by, or for communities to address social issues and foster collective creativity and agency.

Deep Listening:
An approach to understanding that involves attentive, patient, and embodied listening, emphasising silence, context, and the relational dynamics between the listener and what is being heard.

Dadirri:
A concept and spiritual practice from the Ngan’gikurunggurr and Ngen’giwumirri languages of the Aboriginal peoples of the Daly River region, describing a cyclical process of listening, reflecting, and learning.

Dalirrgang (The Build Up):
A seasonal phase on Larrakia Country, part of the broader wet season, marked by intense humidity and heat. It is a time of quiet reflection and preparation.

Digital Garden:
A metaphorical and methodological framework for archiving and presenting artefacts as dynamic, relational entities. The digital garden emphasises ongoing engagement and interaction over static documentation.

Entangled Relations:
A concept highlighting the interconnected and co-constitutive relationships among human, non-human, and beyond-human entities, emphasising the inseparability of beings and processes in shared ecologies.

Folk Concepts:
Everyday, practical knowledge embedded in community practices and used to navigate collective life. These concepts reflect the implicit wisdom of place and people.

Intra-action:
A term from Karen Barad referring to the way entities co-constitute one another through relational processes, as opposed to pre-existing as independent actors.

Kinship:
A dynamic web of connections and responsibilities among human and beyond-human relations. This framework emphasises care, reciprocity, and shared accountability in sustaining ecological and cultural networks.

More-than-Human:
A term that recognises the agency and significance of entities beyond the human, such as plants, animals, land, and other non-human actors, in relational and creative processes. An expanded view of kinship and agency that includes all forms of life and matter, emphasizing the interdependence and relationality of beings within shared worlds.

Nongkrong:
An Indonesian term for informal gatherings that emphasise relaxed conversation, connection, and shared experiences, fostering relational and collective engagement.

Polydisciplinamory:
A concept coined by Victoria Vesna, emphasising deep, passionate engagement across multiple disciplines, valuing relational entanglements, playfulness, and the transformative potential of diverse knowledge systems.

Post-Qualitative Inquiry:
A research methodology that moves beyond traditional qualitative frameworks, emphasising fluidity, relationality, and the emergent nature of knowledge.

Practising Practice:
An iterative process of doing, learning, and re-learning that involves reflecting on and refining one’s creative or research methods over time.

Public Realm:
Defined by Hannah Arendt as a shared space where individuals come together to discuss, act, and engage in collective life. It emphasises visibility, plurality, and the exchange of ideas, forming the foundation of a vibrant, democratic society.

Relational Aesthetics:
A term coined by Nicolas Bourriaud, describing artistic practices that prioritise human interactions and social contexts as the core of their meaning and function.

Relational Ethics:
A framework emphasising responsibility and care within interconnected systems, acknowledging the agency of all entities—human and beyond-human—in shaping shared environments.

(Re)learning
A continual, iterative process of unlearning and relearning that challenges fixed knowledge, fostering openness to change, transformation, and new ways of being.

Sensitising Concepts:
A methodological tool guiding inquiry by offering a general sense of direction and reference. These concepts emerge from lived experiences and encourage relational, process-based exploration of complex phenomena.

Social Collage:
A metaphorical concept describing the assemblage of relationships, stories, and practices into a cohesive, albeit dynamic, whole. It emphasises the interconnected and ephemeral nature of collective processes.

Sweat Collective:
A creative group working collaboratively on Larrakia Country to explore and experiment with relational and collective practices, often through shared meals and artistic provocations.

Sweat Season:
A collective initiative centred on the seasonal rhythms of Larrakia Country, fostering creative and relational practices that align with the natural cycles of the Build Up and wet seasons.

Symbiotic and Antibiotic Policy Ecologies
A framework describing how policies either nurture mutual, place-based relationships (symbiotic) or disrupt and fragment them through hierarchical, exclusionary practices (antibiotic).

The “social”:
Hannah Arendt defines “the social” as the realm where private matters, such as labour and economic concerns, intrude into the public sphere. It blurs the distinction between private and public life, prioritising conformity and necessity over individuality and political action.

Theory in Motion
A way of thinking that emerges through doing. It’s not theory applied from the outside, but theory that takes shape within the practice itself — responsive, relational, and unfinished.

Triadic Structure
The relationship between events, exhibitions, and exegesis. Each holds part of the work; meaning emerges through their connection, not in any one alone.

Viral Response-Abilities:
A term by Donna Haraway referring to practices that carry meaning and materials across boundaries, fostering collaboration and multispecies flourishing through shared responsibility and creativity.

Water Tower Series:
A creative project that reimagines water towers as collaborators and kin, transforming them into sites for artistic exploration, community engagement, and relational storytelling.

Wet Season (Balnba):
The rainy season on Larrakia Country, marked by lush growth, heavy rains, and a shift in both human and ecological activity, fostering reflection and connection.

Wild Policy:
Created by Tess Lea, this concept captures the unpredictable ways policies, particularly in the Northern Territory, are reshaped by the dynamic interplay of people, places, and relationships in their implementation.