Floodland film screening and discussion

17 August 2026

Join UTS Impact Studios for a screening of the award-winning documentary Floodland followed by a Q&A. Directed by Jordan Giusti, the film captures the 2022 Lismore floods and highlights First Nations healing and community-led solutions to climate trauma.

Floodland is an intimate portrait of Lismore and its people as they grapple with their town's existential crisis from flooding events.

“Lismore is the canary in the coalmine for Australian communities. With the increased frequency and severity of climate disasters felt across the country, there is a lot we can learn from Lismore,” said the film’s Impact Producer, AJ Linke, who has described the film as a way to broaden the conversation about climate disasters.

“We need to go beyond evacuation routes and sandbags to include the social, cultural and emotional dimensions of recovery,” she said.

Following the film screening, AJ will be in conversation with UTS's Professor Martin Bryant who will discuss how researchers and creative practitioners can support communities facing the reality of a changed climate.

We need to go beyond evacuation routes and sandbags to include the social, cultural and emotional dimensions of recovery.

Living Lab Northern Rivers

A Professor of Landscape Architecture at UTS, Martin’s work connects design, landscape systems and climate resilience.

Through the Living Lab Northern Rivers, a collaboration between UTS, Southern Cross University and the NSW Reconstruction Authority that was established after the 2022 floods, Martin contributed to research and design approaches that supported the community-led recovery and resilient rebuilding of Lismore and the wider Northern Rivers region.

“Our work in the Living Lab Northern Rivers shows how local knowledge, First Nations perspectives and landscape-based design can inform better decisions about housing, displacement, adaptation and recovery in flood-prone communities,” Martin explained.

The Living Lab Northern Rivers helped reframe flood recovery as a community-led design challenge.

“The challenge covered housing, displacement, landscape, First Nations knowledge and local decision-making to reimagine the long-term future of flood-prone places,” Martin said.

Through a collaborative process, the team was able to develop a framework for community-led climate disaster adaptation and resilience that holistic rebuilding efforts after the floods, helping communities move beyond disaster response toward long-term adaptation.

“The film shows how climate disaster planning that prioritises listening to local knowledge and understanding the landscape as a living system will enable a community to move from a reactive response to a proactive adaptation plan that accounts for the deeper social, cultural and emotional work of climate disaster recovery,” added AJ.

As climate disasters such as the Northern Rivers floods are becoming more frequent and severe, there is increased severity and frequency of floods, fires, heatwaves and sea-level rise.

The challenge covered housing, displacement, landscape, First Nations knowledge and local decision-making to reimagine the long-term future of flood-prone places.

“Communities will experience disasters more often. That’s why we need to think about the social dimensions of preparing for, recovering from and adapting to disasters, so resilience can be built holistically, and First Nations wisdom must be central to this.”

“Disaster preparedness and recovery must ground and centre First Nations wisdom of how landscapes have changed over millennia,” AJ said, reflecting on the film’s focus on Country, healing and Bundjalung knowledge.