Chaired by Samid Suliman, Panel: Ruined brings together Susan Best, Dirk Yates and Joanne Choueiri to explore ruins and the ways we live with what remains.
Moving between Beirut’s shattered grain silos, Queenslander homes and their yards, and the ways artists’ behaviour can affect our experience of their work, the discussion considers what happens when the things we value become damaged, compromised or lost.
The conversation examines how the disappearance of buildings changes a city’s memory, how attachments to familiar housing landscapes shape relationships with each other, Country and the environment, and how knowledge of an artist’s life can alter our response to their work. These questions open a wider discussion about memory, responsibility and the contested choices we make about what to preserve.
The panel features Susan Best, Professor of Art History and Theory at Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University; Dirk Yates, an architect and visual arts practitioner whose work promotes critical reflection on social and cultural contexts; and Joanne Choueiri, a researcher, educator and artist investigating architectural loss, demolition and urban memory in Beirut and Brisbane. The discussion is chaired by Samid Suliman, Director, International (Arts, Education and Law) and Senior Lecturer in Migration and Security at Griffith University.
Dates: Wednesday 4 November 2026, 6–7:30pm
