Bizarre USYD Requiem witch bushfire event ‘a waste of taxpayer money’

A week-long arts event hosted by a university including witches casting “environmental spells” and neo-pagan rituals to mourn last summer’s bushfires is a “bizarre” waste of taxpayer money.

A week-long arts event hosted by a university including witches casting “environmental spells” and neo-pagan rituals to mourn last summer’s bushfires is a “bizarre” waste of taxpayer money, according to a free-speech think-tank.

The event called Requiem, held at the Paddington Reservoir during the Sydney Festival, was hosted and marketed by the University of Sydney’s Sydney Environment Institute to mourn the impact of the fires on flora and fauna.

It was billed as a way to “lament and be present to the reality of the loss” for the plants and animals and included an art laboratory of “bushfire-affected waters and attendant activists” with the audience being told the summer fires were the “acute and violent expression of climate change”.

Some of the events in partnership with the university included “Hommage” – where members of the eco-arts collective Tree Veneration Society walked down Oxford Street adorned in leaf masks and branches banging a tambourine.

Eco-arts collective Tree Veneration Society walked down Oxford Street to attend Requiem. Picture: Facebook

Another musical and spoken performance - performed by the deputy director of the Sydney Environment Institute - was designed to have audience members sit in “waves of sound to excise pain” for the “non-human bodies lost in the fires”.

Cello compositions addressed to trees were played in between poetry readings.

On the final evening, the Dirt Witches - a “collective who stand up against systemic environmental destruction”, dressed in black capes and cowls, gathered around a pile of burnt wood – or so-called “broomsticks” to sing and speak texts out loud as a “form of contemporary, environmental incantation”.

The broomsticks were painted black in a “black carbon coven”.

Dirt Witches cast their “environmental incantation”. Picture: Instagram

But the Institute of Public Affair Foundations of Western Civilisation director Dr Bella d’Abrera questioned the university’s involvement in the event.

“In reality, Requiem was a bizarre mishmash of semi-Christian, paganistic rites and rituals, centred around the worship of Mother Earth,” she said.

“The only thing missing was hairshirts and self-flagellation.

Part of the Requiem art event to mourn the bushfires. Picture: Instagram

“If academics want to peddle this kind of insanity, they should not be doing it at the taxpayers’ expense.”

Dr d’Abrera, who has tracked the gradual loss of serious study of great literature and culture on offer at Australia’s universities, said the event showed the “humanities, as they are taught in Australia, have completely lost their way”.

“If you needed any more proof that climate change has become a religion, then you need go no further than the University of Sydney’s Environment Institute,” she said.

“Hommage” –by members of the eco-arts collective Tree Veneration Society as part of Requiem. Picture: Facebook

The university partnered with several other organisations in the event, including the Red Room Poetry, which receives money from Australia Council and the Living Room Theatre, receives funding from City of Sydney.

Dr d’Abrera pointed out that during their performance the Dirt Witches decided to discard the pointy hats and crooked noses traditionally associated with witches, opting instead for medieval monks’ habits, complete with scapular and cowls.

The Requiem, a ‘bizarre’ ceremony to mourn the bushfires. Picture: Facebook

“The peculiar choice of costume combined with the burnt wood inadvertently creates a scene which is reminiscent of a 16th century pyre which has been assembled for the purpose of burning heretics.”

Another performance - featuring the deputy head of the university’s institute - told audiences that the death of non-human bodies were “a legacy of our inaction”, which Dr d’Abrera said was essentially saying “we have offended Mother Earth, and we must seek forgiveness for our sins”.

“The Faculty of Arts and Social Science continues to focus on things like gender and diversity quotas, identity politics, multi-species justice, and eco-poetics. They have made a laughing-stock of the humanities.”

The burnt branches or “broomsticks” from one of the Dirt Witch performances. Picture: Instagram

In response to the criticisms, the university issued a statement, saying “We think it’s important to share our research and education in ways that are accessible to everyone and participating in activities like Sydney Festival allows us to do that in a cost-effective way.

“Bushfires and climate change continue to have a significant impact on the lives of all Australians.

“We have a proud history of encouraging and defending free speech at the University of Sydney and understand that there will be a range of views on most social or political issues.

The Dirt Witch’s ritual to end the Requiem. Picture: Instagram

“The Sydney Environment Institute was one of seven partners for this particular series of events and contributed to only some of the activities including panel discussions and a poetry reading.”

The statement also said the university was ranked 22nd in the world for arts and humanities, with many subjects including studies of Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle and the French Revolution.

The university also said the institute’s research is funded mostly by peer-reviewed government grants, with Federal funds making up a quarter of the university’s income.

Originally published as Bizarre USYD Requiem witch bushfire event ‘a waste of taxpayer money’