Thursday 15 November, 6–8pm (Gallery open from 5:30pm), Kenneth Myer Auditorium, Kenneth Myer Building; Cost: Gold coin;

General Join Inspired Lives: Discovering Life in Imagination curators Dr Erminia Colucci and Amy Middleton, artist Mic Eales, historian Dr Juanita Feros Ruys, and journalist and writer Chris Johnston in a forum that will explore the taboo of suicide from historical, personal, artistic, psychological and cultural perspectives.

Dr Juanita Feros Ruys, University of Sydney Dr Juanita Feros Ruys will speak about the legal and theological approach to suicide in the Middle Ages, looking at some of the more personalised approaches to the topic from the point of view of first-person medieval texts that reveal psychic trauma and distress and an expressed longing for death. Such desires are of course complicated for the medieval person by the powerful strictures surrounding self-murder in the medieval period.

Dr Erminia Colucci, University of Melbourne; Mic Eales, artist; Amy Middleton, The Dax Centre Dr Erminia Colucci, Mic Eales and Amy Middleton will speak about how sharing the original voice of suicide survivors through creative art practices can deepen our insight and understanding of a phenomenon that affects – directly and/or indirectly – many of us.

Chris Johnston, The Age Chris Johnston will speak about media representations of suicide and ethical journalists’ dilemmas.

Booking information: info@daxcentre.org or +61 3 9035 6258

RSVP by 8 November

Viewers are advised the exhibition contains themes relating to suicide. While the artworks themselves contain no explicit visual reference to suicide, the accompanying exhibition texts make reference to the personal experience of survivors.

The Dax Centre Kenneth Myer Building The University of Melbourne Genetics Lane off Royal Parade Melbourne, Vic, 3010