Out of the Box

Today Mia welcomes into the (socially distanced) studio former Triple J presenter and newly appointed FBi Managing Director Lewis McKirdy. They talk life after Triple J, eventful childhood holidays, life in London (with and without COVID), hand modelling aspirations, dead cats, and musicals. This episode was produced by Mary Ventura. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kaya Wilson's story is set in, on, and around oceans. He was nurtured by oceans across the globe, suffered a traumatic injury at a beach, recovered in the sea, and has committed his working life to researching tides and currents. Kaya is also a trans advocate and an author. He spoke to Mia off the back of publishing his memoir 'As Beautiful As Any Other, A memoir of my body'. Produced by Rebecca M...

Bre Jones, the now-former executive producer of Out of the Box, has a whole life outside of FBi. It's one that's seen her amazing friends and her love for music serve as crutches during hard times. In honour of that, Bre and Mia roll through the songs, relationships, and stories that have built her to be the 10/10 friend/ producer she is. Farewell Bre! Produced by Danni Stewart See omnystudio.com/...

Dorothy McRae McMahon is a celebrated activist, retired Australian Uniting Church minister, lesbian icon, and co-editor of the South Sydney Herald. Her life is one of very high highs, and very low lows: from being the first woman to be ordained in Australia, to harassment by a neo-nazi group, to being accepted in the Uniting Church in spite of her sexuality, to losing her beloved partner Ali, to h...

Blak Douglas is a proud Dungutti man and self-taught painter. His artworks are culturally and politically charged and he’s been an Archibald Prize finalist four times. Blak spoke about the life he’s led in Sydney, his artistic practice, and what it means to be an Aboriginal person in the 21st century. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2011 Dan Pash's band Leader Cheetah was championed as “Australia’s Biggest Export” by Rolling Stone. A classically trained clarinet player turned indie rocker, things were looking up for Dan. However the hearing loss he’d been experiencing since he was a teen was worsening, and with every year and every musical project that came, he had to find new ways to accommodate hi...

Tyree Barnette is a storyteller. In the sense that he’s a former journalist, in the sense that his writing has been published by the SBS and in multiple Sweatshop Literacy Movement anthologies, and in the sense that he imparts stories from his home in his southern-style cuisine. Hailing from Raleigh North Carolina, Tyree spoke to Mia about his family, soul food, and what it means to be held...

Lizzy Hoo is a writer, actor, and a rising star in Sydney's comedy scene. She sat down with Mia ahead of a spate of shows at Sydney Comedy Festival to talk about her neverending hustle and childhood obsession with money. The grind never stops. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shirley Le is a creative producer at Sweatshop Literacy Movement. She’s also a second-generation Vietnamese-Australian who grew up in western Sydney. Her roots and her postcode used to create an invisible barrier for her writing, but now they’re a source of strength and power. Shirley has performed at the Sydney Writers Festival, the Sydney Festival and the Wollongong Writers Festival,...

Today’s guest on Out of the Box is Haitian-Australian Nancy Denis. She’s a writer, singer, dancer, and actor, but above all those she’s a fighter. She fights little battles every day – from attending protests, to protesting through art, to infiltrating writing rooms to call out racism and tokenism. She chats to Mia about her ancestors, the experience of growing up with immi...

You’ve most likely heard Lindsay McDougall’s voice on your radio before. He’s the current host of Drive on ABC Illawarra, and before rhat spent a decade as Triple J’s ‘The Doctor’. His story is one of longevity - it covers decades spent as an animal rights activist, a rich career in radio, and 25 years as the lead guitarist of Frenzal Rhomb. Lindsay sat down wit...

Bundjalung woman, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts, is an activist, writer and storyteller. At the age of 10, Vanessa was forcibly removed from her family by the Department of Community Services (now the Department of Communities and Justice). She was raised in out of home care for the next 8 years, despite her family's efforts to fight the courts and have her returned. Now an Australian Hu...

Growing up, Ana Maria Belo was a dedicated music student hiding a secret from her teachers and her peers. She was deaf. Now as the Ambassador for  the Shepherd Centre , Ana Maria helps children with hearing loss. She joins Mia to chat about her career as a deaf Actor, her relationship with music, the difference between little 'd' deaf and capital 'D' Deaf and her love for Dolly Parton.  ...

We all have different hats we wear in different places. Work hats, home hats, friend hats. The Donny Benet hat is known for shimmering, ironic, 80s disco, but it’s not always the one Donny wears. In his chat with Mia, Donny reveals how his hat collection has changed over time, and his rich history in music and comedy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You might remember Jamarz On Marz from a viral campaign he lead last year which asked education ministers in each state and territory to stop schools restricting afro-textured hair. Along with his activism, he's a rapper and a saxophonist. Jamarz chatted to Mia about the school they attended together in regional NSW, and about his time there growing up black and queer. See omnystudio.com/listener...

The walls of Rosie Piper’s apartment have seen highs and lows in the nine years she’s lived there. They’ve seen her go through breakups, they’ve watched her career as a comic evolve, and they’ve been there as she came out as trans. Rosie chatted to Mia about transitioning, comedy, lockdown, and Scott Morrison shitting himself at Engadine Maccas after the Sharks lost t...

Bianca Willoughby is the artist formerly known as John A Douglas, and her identity is largely invisible. Beneath her skin is an invisible disability, a cultural background with many missing puzzle pieces, and a gender she’s only now uncovering. In the decades leading up to now, she’s been a DJ, a chef, an organ transplant recipient and an artist. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

Robyn Kenney is a proud 78er - which is to say she took part in Sydney’s first Mardi Gras march in 1978. She is a radical, and she’s spent a lifetime addressing social inequity through her activism, as well as through senior roles in government and not-for-profits. Robyn will be joining the original 1978 Mardi Gras marchers to share their stories via Zoom as part of this year’s m...

If you find yourself at  4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art's offsite gallery at in World Square tomorrow, you'll enter hypercoloured scenes of life and death. You'll see contemporary Chinese Zodiac iconography soaked in pink, and bright reflections of rebirth. This is the work of multidisciplinary Thai-Australian artist James Jirat Patradoon. A dark wizard and former-hoarder...

As a mixed-race Tongan Australian kid growing up in Mt Druitt, Winnie Dunn thought her home was a place the arts came to die. She didn't access culturally diverse Australian writing in School or uni, and she'd never seen literature about Western Sydney written by people from Western Sydney. That's until she joined Sweatshop Literacy Movement - a project devoted to empowering culturally and li...

In 2015, activist and rapper, Ziggy Ramo wrote an album he described as an obituary. ‘Black Thoughts’ delved into the issues Aboriginal people face in Australia, from the perspective of someone on suicide watch. Ziggy released the album to wide acclaim in 2020 as the Black Lives Matter movement gained steam in Australia. Nominated for both Best Album and Best Song in the FBi SMAC Award...

This week on Out of the Box, we’re taking a look back at some stories from some much loved FBi alumni - Bridie Tanner, Stu Buchanan, Avani Dias, Osman Faruqi and Serge Negus. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sean Sweeney gained Australia's attention as being the big, bearded AUSLAN interpreter for the NSW Rural Fire Service during the 2019 - 2020 Australian bushfire crisis. Sean was born as the first hearing baby on his mother's side in four generations. He's grown up immersed in Sydney's deaf culture and community and knew how to sign before he could speak. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inf...

Ricky Simandjuntak is the manager of Western Sydney drill group, OneFour. Despite pressure from police, they have become an international sensation. Ricky has been a feature in the recent renaissance of Western Sydney's creative scene with his label and lifestyle brand, Sydney Romantics. | Producers: Bre Jones and Rebecca Merrick See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1970s, a group of women decamped to Amazon Acres in Northern NSW to create a small society completely free of men. Amber Jackson was one of them. As a kid she grew up with her Mum in a feminist hippie commune guided by the mantra: no men, no meat, no machines. Amber will be appearing at All About Women at the Sydney Opera House in March. | Producers: Bre Jones and Rebecca Merrick See omnyst...