Catherine Claessens

Catherine Claessens in an emerging artist and aspiring activist and teacher from Canberra. She works mainly in printmaking, drawing, and watercolour to explore issues of social justice, religion and sometimes simply the strange and beautiful environment around her. Catherine graduated from ANU School of Art & Design in 2016.

Higher Education Activism Without Vocation

Higher Education Activism Without Vocation

By: Robyn Lewis, Catherine Claessens

Action on higher education policy is a core aspect of activism at universities. While this work is important and necessary, something is fundamentally missing from our demands and our narratives. Education activists demand the opportunity for everyone who wishes to...

In

Past Issues

PRECARITY

Precarity’s paradoxical force unites us in a condition of fragmentation and isolation.

CRISIS

The change and ruptures in our personal and collective lives, still lingers.

THE UNIVERSITY

Excessive managerialism, neoliberalisation and casualisation are some of the main challenges that are threatening the viability and the values of the university today. Lina, Amber and Scott kick off ‘The University’ issue, introducing the core themes and questions.

BODIES

This issue of Demos explores the ways in which the body moves through the world – how it labors and loves, how it treads the duplicitous thresholds of legality, how it is radicalised, and eternalised, how it is corralled and transgressed.

STUDENT ACTIVISM

Today’s student activists ask themselves: “how did we get here?”, “where are we going?” and “how are we going to get there?”. Issue 7 of Demos Journal concerns itself with these questions representing the history, practice and form of student activism.

FUTURES POSSIBLE

Introducing Demos issue 6: the editors take a look into what it means to imagine the future.

RESISTANCE

Introducing Demos issue 5: the editors take a look into what it means to resist and affect change.

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES

Introducing Demos issue 4: the editors take a look into what boundaries mean to Australian identity today.

VOICES FROM THE GRASSROOTS

As a sneak peak into our latest edition, the Demos Editors bring together voices on grassroots organising and activism at ANU, in the Canberra community, and from beyond.

ARTICULATING SILENCE

The Demos editorial team bring you a preview of some of the exciting pieces to come with an exploration into the many meanings of silence.

CREATING DEMOS

To introduce the exciting diversity of voices that make up the first edition of Demos Journal, we embark upon a reflection on the relation between democracy and creativity itself.