Women’s Voices
Panel discussion for International Women’s Day

Through visual art and storytelling, Janet Besançon and Judi Morison share perspectives that illuminate resilience and creativity. The panel discussion will be chaired by Annie Talve, chair of ArtsNational Coffs Coast.

Janet Besançon’s is an Australian-French artist who explores themes of labour, resilience, and cultural identity in her practice. Her solo exhibition Monokini, currently on display at Yarrila Arts and Museum, is a powerful series of 28 abstract paintings created with French pigments, Australian white clay, and everyday domestic tools, transforming objects of unpaid labour into instruments of protest and expression. Each piece reflects on the invisible, undervalued work expected of women, while the symbolic cycle of 28 paintings honours resilience and generational strength.  

Judi Morison is a storyteller whose writing engages with truth-telling through fiction. Her debut novel, Secrets, which won the 2022 Boundless Indigenous Writer’s Mentorship, was published by Bundyi in 2025 and her short fiction and poetry have been published in various literary anthologies. Judi’s historical novel manuscript, ‘Crossing the Creek’, was shortlisted for The Australian Fiction Prize 2025 and will be published by Bundyi in January 2027. After 23 years on Wadi Wadi Country, where the South Coast Writers Centre was important in her writing journey, Judi now lives gratefully on Gumbaynggirr Country.