SWISP
SWISP Lab is an interdisciplinary critical futures living lab and speculative thinking consultancy based in Narrm, Melbourne.
SWISP (Speculative Wanderings in Space and Place) Lab led by Kate and Sarah is an a/r/tographic living lab in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia) working in the fields of speculative a/r/tography, digital creativities, digital childhoods, digital methods, digital education, and digital scholarships in the humanities, arts and social sciences.
A living lab refers to a relational real-world environment that is used for applied practice, testing, and speculative play. It allows researchers, teachers and practitioners to study, test, and speculate on possible, preferable and plausible solutions in realistic conditions rather than in controlled settings. There is a strong emphasis on co-creation, feedback loops and data creativities that involve end-users in the design, development, and evaluation processes to ensure that solutions are relevant and effective. Our post-digital living lab involves collaboration with various stakeholders, such as researchers, industry, teachers, and end-users (in our case young people), to address complex challenges.
SWISP seeks to speculate as a/r/tographers about reparative futures in the midst of climate collapse. We entangle our research pathways in this collective to pose questions, break, disrupt and wander with/in multigenerational connected communities. Our work seeks to move in and out, over and under, through and within spaces and places while knitting together disparate cites/sites/sights in a metagalaxy of ideas, wonderings and speculations. ORCID LinkedIn
-
#blogtakeover | Time, Ties, and Teaching: Unpacking Pedagogies that Foster Connections
By SWISP Lab Master of Teaching Interns: Biman Cai, Billy Frost, Peiyao Qian, Mengyu Ren, Tam Thai We each entered our WIL experience with different passions and directions, following what felt meaningful in our own teaching journeys. However, we realised that at the end of our WIL experience, our wonderings, work, and dialogue all connected […]
-
Decolonising Data, Reimagining Relationships: Reflections from the Learning with the Land Symposium
June 2025 | SWISP Lab This weekend, SWISP Lab had the honour of participating in the Learning with the Land Symposium at the University of British Columbia an international gathering grounded in land-based pedagogies and arts-based inquiry, led by Professor Emerita, Dr Rita L. Irwin, Dr Shannon Leddy and PhD Candidate, Nicole Rallis. Rita, Sarah, […]
-
Exploring Critical Climate Futures – SWISP goes to AUS MUN INDIA
We’re honoured to be facilitating the UNFCCC Committee at AUS MUN INDIA on August 1st 2nd and 3rd and look forward to supporting young people to think big and bold on the Paris Agreement and beyond. Want to know more about AUS MUN INDIA? AUS MUN is a curation based on IND-AUS partnership, promoting Australia […]
-
Why we need to COP it, for today and tomorrow
New Australian Association for Research in Education @AAREBlog
-
#blogtakeover ‘Learning with the Land’ SWISP Lab artist-in-residence Kriti Aggarwal
“I guess, I am a climate activist now?…” 2 Nov 8:46 AM I wondered as I walked out from the grocery shop. After a three day workshop with SWISP Lab, I was walking back to my hostel when I had the sudden urge to drink something good. So, I went into the grocery shop, picked […]
-
Topian futures: Speculating dystopian and utopian futures from climate change induced sea level rise
A podcast and blog by SWISP Lab Intern Jack Beardsley You can listen to Jack’s speculative podcast on climate change-induced sea level rise, where climate experts and activists share their opinions on the shaping of dystopian and utopian futures. I believe it is important to constantly ask big questions and push the boundaries of what […]
-
Pluriversal futures in India: What kinds of futures do we want to see, know, and live in?
Did you know that Delhi faces some of the highest risks from extreme heat, with rising temperatures, an increase in deadly heatwaves, and acute urban heat island effects impacting local productivity, putting vulnerable populations at risk, and contributing to rapidly rising energy demand (and associated emissions)? The Taj Mahal, located a few hours’ drive from […]
-
SWISP Lab residence program: SGB Sci560 Mediators
What is a SWISP Lab residency? SWISP are in residence as a living lab in studioFive at The University of Melbourne and we re-turn research created in SWISP Lab anarchival exhibitions into teacher education so that teachers (both in- and pre-service) learn ‘in’ a living, ever shifting curriculum. Ours is a ‘radically related’ (Bickel., et […]
Who is SWISP?
DIRECTORS
Associate Professor Kate Coleman
Kate is co-lead of SWISP with Dr Sarah Healy and CI on ‘The Learning with the Land’, SSHRC project in the Faculty of Education. Her pluridisciplinary research and teaching are positioned in the intersection of art, design, digital, practice, culture, and data. Kate’s research into practice includes digital practices and immersive data sites, creativities, speculative inquiry, and data creation with young people living in the midst of climate collapse. ORCID
Sarah is co-lead of SWISP with Dr Kate Coleman. They research and teach in studioFive at the Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne. Best known for their contributions to the fields of critical affect studies, digital methods and the posthumanities, Sarah’s interdisciplinary program of research involves research collaborations with academics, artists, practitioners and educators from around the world. ORCID
INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS
The social practice component of SWISP Lab’s program of research is made possible through international partnerships. A key collaborator is the Science Gallery International Network. Science Gallery Bengaluru is a major contributor to this collaboration. An aim of SWISP Lab is to form connections with organisations in India that share Science Gallery Bengaluru’s mission and values and would like to explore how an international partnership with an Australia research team could be beneficial. The following 38 minute video, “International partnerships in Anthropogenic times: Engaging in creative inquiry” features critical reflections on the complexities of India-Australia partnerships by SWISP Lab, Science Gallery Bengaluru and the Council for Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).
PARTNERS AND COLLABORATORS
Science Gallery Network | The Science Gallery Network consists of leading universities united around a singular mission: to ignite creativity and discovery where science and art collide. The galleries of the Science Gallery Network are committed to bringing science, art, technology and design together to deliver world-class educational and cultural experiences for young people.
Associate Professor Eri Saikawa | Emory Climate Talks | ORCID | Eri conducts interdisciplinary research on the environment. Eri has worked on diverse projects that cover: 1) atmospheric chemistry (modelling aerosols and tropospheric ozone); 2) environmental health (assessing the adverse health impacts of air pollution); 3) biogeochemistry (modelling global soil nitrous oxide emissions); 4) climate science (estimating emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases), and 5) environmental policy/politics (analyzing the impacts of environmental standards and trade as well as analysing policymaking processes).
Council on Energy, Environment and Water | CEEW is one of Asia’s leading not-for-profit policy research institutions. CEEW uses data, integrated analysis, and strategic outreach to explain – and change – the use, reuse, and misuse of resources.
Global Childhoods Research Hub | Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne | The GCRH position’s children’s lives, worldviews and futures at its core. It connects childhood research and teaching in a clear and cohesive manner, bringing projects from leading academics, early career-researchers, research fellows and doctoral students together around interdisciplinary themes and research problems; including those related to equity, social justice and disadvantage, climate change and sustainability, contemporary learning ecologies, multimodal lives, education systems and children as activists. The focus of Global Childhoods Research Hub is on the lives and experiences of children from birth to 18 years of age across the world.
What does a (s)wisp do in Minecraft? A wisp, when found, circles around a wall with a interactable brick. It disappears quickly after touching the hero. When clicked, the wall opens up and reveals a hidden room that occasionally contains six emerald pots, a common chest, or an obsidian chest.
SWISP acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the stolen land on which we practice, research, teach and learn. We offer respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Elders, past and present. In the spirit of reconciliation we acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their continuing connections to land, sea, sky and community. What Country are you on? Native Digital Land might help you locate it.