In collaboration with local artists and thinkers, this free public program brings together film screenings, conversations and workshops that explore how conflict is lived, felt and negotiated. Some events ask us to listen; others to speak, write, make or simply be present together. Browse the schedule below and join us at Carriageworks for key moments to gather and participate more deeply within Conflictorium.

A Sound Democracy (film screening)

14 January 2026 at 5:30pm

Free, no registration needed

A Sound Democracy is a reflective documentary that examines the visceral power of sound – how music, movement and the DJ sound system dissolve individual identity into a collective body. Moving beyond sound as mere listening, the film explores its physiological, emotional and political force, questioning how rhythm can mobilise, unify and also manipulate crowds. By tracing the sound system era and the emergence of the “mob,” the film invites viewers to reflect on what soundtracks our collective conscience – and what this means for the fragile fabric of democracy today. 

Credits
Story, Editing, Sound & Direction: Dhananjai Sinha
Research & Interviews: Dhananjai Sinha, Pranay Kanojia, Ayush Chandraanshi
Principal Photography: Dhananjai Sinha, Pranay Kanojia
Produced by: Conflictorium – Museum of Conflict 

Thinking Through Tension by Hunar Symposia & Conflictorium (workshop)

15 January 2026 at 5:30pm

Free, no registration needed

Hunar Symposia, a platform for thinkers and cultural practitioners around questions of process, practice and collective inquiry,  joins Conflictorium for a live, evolving conversation shaped by those in the room. 

Moving between dialogue, reflection and participatory moments, the session explores how creative practice can engage with uncertainty, disagreement and complexity.

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Writing Together: Conflictorium poetry workshop for kids by Donnalyn Xu

16 January 2026 at 2:00pm

Poetry has the power to transform our feelings and experiences into a creative form that is playful, fun, and a place of rest.

This workshop invites children from ages 8 to 14 to reflect on where they come from and where they are – asking its young participants to draw on themes of place and community as we gather together on Gadigal Country in Redfern. Led by poet, writer and arts worker Donnalyn Xu, this workshop will explore the uses and practices of feeling and thinking through language, poetic techniques and forms.

Parents are welcome to join their children for this event.

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Complaint as Collective Labour by Donnalyn Xu (workshop)

16 January 2026 at 5:30pm 

Free, no registration needed

What is the use of complaining? Whose complaints are heard and whose are unacknowledged? This in-conversation asks artists, arts workers and writers of Sydney to bring their complaints and experiences of complaining – whether they are formal, personal, unexamined or unable to be categorised – to consider the necessity of refusing to be silent when faced with institutional barriers that ask us to sit down and shut up.

Following Sarah Ahmed’s study of complaint as “a path of more resistance”, this workshop will practice complaint as collective labour, straying from individual and procedural pathways that complaint is often limited to.

Shaping Felt Experience: Art and craft with Bonnie Huang (workshop)

17 January 2026 at 10:00am

Led by artist Bonnie Huang, this hands-on workshop invites participants to translate an internal experience into sculptural form. Working with simple materials like beeswax, raffia, wire and found objects, the session will encourage participants to sit with a personal emotional memory and respond through form, texture and gesture, using sculpture as a way to think beyond language.

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Conflictorium Workshop: Do You Mean It?

18 January 2026 at 2:00pm

Do You Mean It? invites participants to explore the space between intention and expression. Through conversation and creative exercises, the session examines how social rituals, polite gestures and political correctness shape what we say, as separate to how we actually feel. A playful, searching workshop about sincerity, speech and the performances of everyday life.

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After Hours: What We Inherit - Kerfew & Conflictorium

21 January 2026 at 5:30pm 

Free, no registration needed.

A tour and informal conversation on exploring how second-generation Australians use nightlife to negotiate identity, freedom and family expectations.

Cooperative Play for the Gameful Revolution (workshop)

22 January 2026 at 4:00pm

How do shared games shape the future of storytelling? Together with asses.masses creators Milton Lim and Laurel Green, we will explore our crucial roles as game designers for critical systems. Learn more about how cooperative games impact how we live, work and build communities. Foster collaborative storytelling and scaffold emergent roleplay through hands-on prototyping.

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Conflictorium Workshop: Conflicts Inside-Out

24 January 20206 at 2:00pm

Conflicts: Inside-Out? invites participants to pause and notice how the tensions we see in the world – social, political, interpersonal – become part of our emotional architecture. The session explores how fear, anger, loyalty or exhaustion mirror the conflicts we inhabit collectively, asking whether we can ever truly separate the “outer” world from the “inner” self.

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Sabarmati and its Lovers (film screening)

25 January 2026 at 2:00pm

Free, no registration needed

Rivers have long been sites of life, intimacy, mourning and love – places where civilizations grow and feelings find expression. Yet they are also spaces where lovers choose to end their lives.

Sabarmati and its Lovers investigates the role of Ahmedabad's Riverfront project as rhetoric, site and tool for loving and policing love in this city. Set against the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad, the film reflects on the unsettling rise in suicides among lovers along its banks, asking what the river offers that life seems to withhold. Has the language of love changed, or has the river begun to speak differently?

The film invites us to think deeply about love, vulnerability and what it means to keep choosing life in a world that often makes loving difficult.

Credits
Production (Research): Akash Dutt, Dhananjai Sinha
Camera and Edits: Dhananjai Sinha
The Team: Abhishek Kukreja, Akash Dutt, Avni Sethi, Dhananjai Sinha, Dhrupad Mehta, Fatema Dula, Jayanti Christian, Jignesh Gajjar, kinjal Shah, Nayan Rathod, Ranjeeta Dhosiya, Rocky, V. Diwakar, YSK Prerana,Tanvi dubbewar.
Thanks to: Anahita Surya, Hozefa Ujjaini, Niyati Parikh,Parth Bimani,Rishabh Mall.
Produced by: Conflictorium – Museum of Conflict

Read more about the Conflictorium Exhibition here.